I  J 


a 


Master  Minds  at  the 

Commonwealth's 

Heart 


By 

Percy  H.  Epler 

Joint  Author  of  Yale  Addresses  on  "The  Personality  of  Christ, 
Author  of  "The  Beatitude  of  Progress," 
Magazine  Articles,  etc. 


F.  S.  Blanchard  &  Co.,  Publishen 

Worcester,  Massachusetts 

1909 


KAft 


Copyright,  1909,  by 
F.  S.  Blanchard  &  Co. 


IN    MEMORY   OF 

MY    FATHER,    AND    TO    MY    MOTHER 

WHOM    HE    HAS    LEFT, 

THIS    BOOK    IS    AFFECTIONATELY    DEDICATED 

BY    ONE 

WHOSE    EYES    ARE    MORE 

AND    MORE    OPENED, 

AS    DISTANCE    INCREASES   THE    PERSPECTIVE, 

TO    THE 

SACRED  DEPTHS  OF  THEIR 

PARENTAL  LOVE  AND  SACRIFICE. 


CONTENTS 


Fsge 

Foreword 5 

Artemas  Ward — First  Commander-in-chief  of  the  American 
Revolution,  Victor  of  the  Evacuation  of  Boston,  and  Hero 

of  Shays'  Rebelhon 9 

Eli  Whitney — Inventor  of  the  Cotton-gin         ....  57 

Thomas  Blanchard  and  other  inventors           ...  78 

Elias  Howe — Inventor  of  the  Sewing-machine          ...  78 

William  Morton — The  Conqueror  of  Pain     ....  89 

Dorothy  Lynde  Dix — Redemptress  of  the  World's  Insane       .  119 

Clara  Barton — Founder  of  the  Red  Cross  in  America          .  149 

George  Bancroft — Historian  of  the  United  States    .        .        .  189 

John  Bartholomew  Gough— Greatest  Apostle  of  Temperance  217 

George  Frisbie  Hoar— An  American  Ideal  Statesman         .  247 

Luther  Burbank— Discoverer  of  a  New  Plant  World        .        .  285 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


Opp.  Page 

Ancient   Kitchen    of   the    Ward    Homestead    with    Door   and 

Knocker 15 

Watching  the  Battle  of  Bunker  Hill 23 

Portrait  of  General  Artemas  Ward 45 

Revolutionary  Homestead  of  General  Artemas  Ward         .        .  54 

Birthplace  of  Eli  Whitney 58 

Portrait  of  Eli  Whitney 70 

Portrait  of  Thomas  Blanchard 74 

Birthplace  of  Elias  Howe            78 

Portrait  of  Elias  Howe 86 

The  Discovery  of  Ether  as  an  Anaesthetic 91 

Portrait  of  Dr.  William  Morton 105 

Portrait  of  Dorothy  Lynde  Dix 119 

Clara    Barton's    Birthplace    and   Present   Summer   Home   at 

Oxford 150 

Portrait  of  Clara  Barton 157 

Portrait  of  George  Bancroft             189 

Bancroft's  Birthplace 192 

Portraits  of  John  Bartholomew  Gough            .         .         .         .  217 

Reproduction  of  Painting  of  John  B.  Gough       ....  245 

Portrait  of  George  Frisbie  Hoar 247 

A  Presidential  Party  at  Senator  George  Frisbie  Hoar's  Residence  273 

Portrait  of  Luther  Burbank 285 

Birthplace  of  Luther  Burbank  and  his  Cottage  at  Santa  Rosa, 

California 296 

Cactus— Before  and  After 307 


FOREWORD 


hi  writing  a  collective  biography  of  ten  great  lives  in  the 
zone  of  inventive  genius  presented  in  such  a  book  as  ''Master 
Minds  at  the  Commonwealth's  Heart,"  the  danger  of  origi- 
nality is  as  great  as  the  danger  of  merely  reproducing 
recounted  facts  from  others.  Defects  from  each  of  these 
qualities  of  the  biographer  no  doubt  abound,  yet  not  inten- 
tionally. So  far  a^  I  have  sought  originality,  it  has  been 
by  a  diligent  study  of  each  life  and  time  to  get  a  first-hand 
consciousness  of  the  animating  purpose  of  the  life  and  re- 
immerse  the  life  story  anew  in  that.  So  far  as  I  have 
clung  to  lines  presented  by  other  biographers,  it  has  been 
to  true  the  account  to  facts,  in  doing  which  escape  from 
hitherto  admirable  biographies,  long  and  short,  is  well 
nigh  impossible. 

Not  relinquishing  the  hope  of  some  original  presentation 
through  the  seizing  of  each  life's  purpose  amid  the  detail 
and  making  it  stand  out  in  its  essentials,  I  yet  naturally 
have  found  it  impossible  to  get  clear  away  from  the  splen- 
did work  of  scores  of  magazine  writers  and  monographers 
before  and  after  the  Civil  War,  and  from  the  following 
authoritative  and  standard  biographies :  "The  Life  of  Dor- 
othea Dix,"  Tiffany;  "Trials  of  a  Public  Benefactor," 
N.  P.  Bice;  "The  Story  of  the  Bed  Cross,"  "The  Story  of 
My  Childhood,"  etc.,  Clara  Barton;  John  Bartholomew 
Gaugh's  "Autobiography,"  "Platform  Echoes,"  "Sun- 
light and  Shadow,"  etc.;  "Life  and  Letters  of  George  Ban- 


FOBEWORD 

croft,"  2  vols.,  M.  A.  DeWolf  Howe;  George  Frisbie  Hoar's 
" Autohiograpliy  of  Seventy  Years,"  2  vols.;  "New  Crea- 
tions in  Plant  Life,"  W.  S.  Harwood. 

Especially  does  the  author  acknowledge  the  courteous 
and  unfailing  help  of  these  descendants  of  master  minds  or 
originals  themselves,  in  granting  him  access  to  unprinted 
sources,  photographs,  daguerreotypes,  etc.:  the  late  Miss 
Harriet  Ward  and  Miss  Clara  Denny  Ward  of  Shrews- 
bury, and  other  members  of  the  Ward  family;  Hon.  Eli 
Whitney,  grandson  of  the  inventor;  Miss  Clara  Barton 
and  her  secretary.  Dr.  J.  B.  Hubbell;  Mrs.  Charles  Beed, 
niece  of  John  B.  Gough;  the  descendants  and  friends  of 
Elias  Howe  at  Spencer;  Dr.  William  Morton  of  New  York, 
the  son  of  the  discoverer ;  Miss  Mary  Hoar,  daughter  of 
Senator  Hoar;  Luther  Burbank  and  his  sister,  Mrs.  Bee- 
son.  These  once,  and  frequently  more  than  once,  revised  and 
corrected  the  copy,  occasionally  inserting  a  luminous  touch. 

Finally  well-informed  men,  themselves  authors  of  note, 
like  Professor  Albert  Bushnell  Hart  of  Harvard  University 
or  Charles  Allen  Dinsmore,  or  eye-ivitnesses  and  friends  of 
the  great  men  of  the  Commonwealth,  like  Hon.  A.  S.  Roe 
and  ex-Librarian  S.  S.  Green  of  Worcester,  have  read  all 
or  part  of  the  monographs  and  grafted  their  kindly  criti- 
cism. 

I  present  these  ten  lives  in  a  group  with  a  purpose.  For 
zones  of  genius  have  always  held  their  peculiar  place 
in  the  history  of  huma/)iity.  Master  minds,  isolated  as 
they  may  be  in  their  originality,  do  not  exist  alone. 
Others  living  near  catch  the  breath  of  their  inspiration, 
and  though  proceeding  perhaps  along  altogether  different 
paths,  are  animated  to  achieve  equally  great  master-pieces. 
The  contagiousness  of  genius  might  be  proved,  had  we  time, 
by  a  biographical  map  of  the  world's  great  genius  groups. 


FOREWORD 

We  have  Jiere  to  view  hut  one}  While  individually  its 
figures  have  been  too  frequently  forgotten  or  obscured,  it 
has  never  been  in  any  case  viewed  as  a  group  originating 
from  one  centre.  But  it  is  a  mighty  group  nevertheless. 
It  is  more  than  a  school  of  genius.  We  speak  of  the 
Concord  School,  and  properly.  They  were  writers,  authors, 
dreamers.  But  these  in  the  Worcester  zone  of  genius  are 
not  only  writers  and  dreamers,  but  founders,  creators,  in- 
ventors, discoverers,  "doers  of  the  word  and  not  'writers' 
only,"  and  in  this  sense  they  are  a  greater  zone  of  genius 
than  that  at  Concord. 

General  Artemas  Ward,  First  Commander-in-chief  of 
the  American  Revolution;  Eli  Whitney,  Inventor  of  the 
Cotton-gin;  Elias  Howe,  Inventor  of  the  Sewing-machine ; 
Dr.  William  Morton,  "Conqueror  of  Pain;"  Dorothy  Lynde 
Dix,  Redemptress  of  the  World's  Insane;  Clara  Barton, 
Founder  of  the  Red  Cross  in  America;  George  Bancroft, 
Historian  of  the  United  States;  John  Bartholomew  Gough, 
Greatest  Apostle  of  Temperance;  George  Frishie  Hoar, 
an  American  Ideal  Statesman ;  Luther  Burbank,  Discoverer 
of  a  New  Plant  World! — Geniuses  are  these,  small,  perhaps, 
if  you  bound  them  by  their  starting-point,  the  hill-crowned 
region  of  Worcester.  But  they  are  mighty  when  you  see 
them  radiate  the  globe.  PERCY  H   EPLER 

Worcester,  September  10th,  1909. 


iHad  the  author  projected  a  history  of  Worcester,  there  have  been 
other  residents  of  Worcester  and  of  the  county  of  Worcester,  of  na- 
tional reputation  whose  sketches  might  well  have  been  given,  such  as 
Isaiah  Thomas,  and  the  first  Levi  Lincoln,  and  Governor  Davis,  and 
others  in  the  past;  Andrew  H.  Green  in  the  present;  and  still  others 
equally  great  who  did  not  start  here,  but  who  for  a  time  were  resi- 
dents of  Worcester,  such  as  Edward  Everett  Hale.  But  such  is  not 
the  object  of  the  book  as  it  is  to  deal  with  ten  international  figures 
who  have  been  distinctly  creators,  founders,  discoverers  or  inventors. 


ARTEMAS  WARD 

FIRST    COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF    OF    THE    AMERICAN    REVOLUTION, 

VICTOR  OF  THE  EVACUATION  OF  BOSTON,  AND  HERO 

OF   SHAYS'    REBELLION^ 

THE  earliest  chapter  of  the  American  Revolution  we 
may  realize  afresh  by  reading  the  letters  in  an  an- 
cient trunk  over  which,  in  the  old  colonial  home- 
stead at  Shrewsbury,  General  Artemas  Ward's  tall  clock 
is  still  telling  the  moons  and  tick-tocking  the  generations 
away. 

For  here  are  writings  whose  broken  seals  disclose  the 
first  secrets  of  the  conflict  in  the  handwriting  of  the 
fathers  of  the  Revolution,  in  the  handwriting  of  Washing- 
ton and  his  generals,  in  the  handwriting  of  the  creators  of 
the  Constitution,  and  sometimes,  as  in  the  following,  in  the 
handwriting  of  an  intercepted  message  of  the  enemy. 

Just  here  breaks  upon  the  scene  the  secret  forming  of  the 
first  minute-men.  There  vibrates  throughout  the  qui  vive 
that  pulsated  about  the  storm-centre  at  Concord.  Con- 
sternation whispers  its  breath  and  betrays  its  shock  at  the 
rupture  between  royalist  and  American,  brother  and 
brother,  comrade  and  comrade,  neighbor  and  neighbor, 
friend  and  friend.     Here  is  exposed  the  ominous  separa- 


lApril  20th,  1908,  as  the  Patriots'  Day  address  in  Boston  at 
the  celebration  of  Patriots'  Day  by  the  Sons  of  the  Colonial  Wars 
of  Massachusetts,  the  author  first  presented  this  monograph  on 
General  Ward  by  invitation  of  Prof.  Albert  Bushnell  Hart  of 
Harvard  University  and  the  Governor  of  the  Sons  of  the  Colonial 
Wars. 


10  MASTER    MINDS 

tion  of  powder-stores  from  the  King's  powder-houses  to 
the  powder-houses  of  the  patriots.  Here  is  thrust  in  the 
royalist  counter-stroke  of  Governor  Gage's  proclamation 
and  the  threat  that  every  rebel  taken  in  arms  would  hang. 
In  the  captured  missive  from  Cambridge,  August  29th, 
17741— 

Mr.  Brattle  presents  his  duty  to  His  Excellency  Governor  Gage; 
he  apprehends  it  is  his  duty  to  acquaint  His  Excellency  from  time 
to  time  with  everything  he  hears  and  knows  to  be  true  and  of 
importance  in  these  troublous  times.  Captain  Minot  of  Concord, 
a  very  worthy  man,  this  minute  informed  Mr.  Brattle  that  there 
had  been  repeatedly  made  pressing  applications  to  him  to  warn 
his  company  to  meet  at  one  minute 's  warning,  equipped  with  arms 
and  ammunition  according  to  laws  he  had  constantly  denied  them; 
adding,  if  he  did  not  gratify  them,  he  should  be  constrained  to 
quit  his  farm  and  town.  Mr.  Brattle  told  him  he  had  better  do 
that  than  lose  his  life  and  be  hanged  for  a  rebel. 

This  morning  the  Selectmen  of  Medford  came  and  received  their 
town  stock  of  powder  which  was  in  the  arsenal  on  Quarry  Hill. 
So  there  is  now  there  in  the  King's  powder-house  only  which 
shall  remain  there  as  a  sacred  deposition  till  ordered  out  by  the 
Captain  General. 

The  facts  in  this  letter  exposed  not  only  the  patriots' 
withdrawal  of  powder,  but  actuated  the  first  attempt  of 
General  Gage  to  disarm  the  people  by  securing  the  powder- 
stores  and  cannon  of  the  colony, 

WARD   WITHSTANDS  THE  KING'S  GOVERNOR 

Amongst  the  first  patriots  to  voice  their  rights  against 
British  encroachment  of  liberties  and  against  arbitrary 
power  was  Artemas  Ward. 

Original  copies  of  the  royal  Governor's  official  summons 
to  council  still  lie  in  a  packet  in  the  ancient  trunk,  and 


iFrom  a   manuscript  at   the  Ward  homestead. 


ARTEMASWARD  11 

repeatedly  bear  to  Ward  this  commandatory  but  reluctant 
message : 

Sir:  His  Excellency  tho  Governor  directs  a  general  council  to 
be  held  at  the  Council  Chamber  in  Boston  on  Wednesday,  the 
11th  instant,  at  ten  o'clock  in  the  forenoon,  and  expects  your 
attendance  accordingly. 

This  summons  was  not  issued  with  grace  by  the  royal 
Governor,  but  at  the  dictation  of  a  popular  demand  he 
dared  not  resist. 

To  represent  their  stand  against  a  high-handed  infringe- 
ment of  their  rights  and  liberties,  nine  years  before  Mr. 
Brattle's  letter  and  for  nearly  ten  years  previous  to  the 
Revolution,  the  Massachusetts  men  insisted  upon  the  pres- 
ence of  Artemas  Ward  in  the  royal  council.  The  Governor 
objected  and  negatived  their  choice — an  evidence  of  the 
greatness  of  Ward's  weight  as  a  patriot. 

In  this  full  decade  before  the  events  of  '76,  among  the 
pre-revolutionary  collisions  constantly  occurring,  one  col- 
lision took  place  in  June,  1766,  at  Shrewsbury  Green,  with 
King  George's  Governor,  Francis  Bernard. 

This  June  day  Artemas  Ward  was  engaged  after  the 
manner  of  his  time  in  doing  his  part  towards  the  rebuilding 
of  the  Shrewsbury  Meeting-house.  Like  the  rest  of  his 
line,  who  did  the  same  from  the  time  Deacon  Ward  landed 
in  the  sixteen  hundreds,  Ward  took  the  lead  in  the  Pilgrim 
Church  and  in  all  that  it  meant  to  America,  particularly  in 
fostering  in  the  Colonies  the  idea  of  freedom  and  individual 
liberty  which  had  been  always  tabernacled  in  its  ark. 

Suddenly  Ward's  superintendence  of  the  white  church's 
reconstruction  was  interrupted  by  a  dash  of  a  mounted 
red-coat,  who  swirled  out  of  the  dust  of  tJie  Boston  turn- 
pike. It  was  the  agent  of  His  Majesty's  Governor  at  Bos- 
ton, and  he  did  not  rein  the  wheeling  nag  till  he  brought  it 


12  MASTER    MINDS 

up  full  before  Artemas  Ward  himself,  to  thrust  before  him 
the  order  whose  seal  he  at  once  broke  thus  to  read  aloud: 

Boston,  June  30,  1766. 
To  Artemas  Ward,  Esquire. 

Sir:  I  am  ordered  by  the  Governor  to  signify  to  you  that  it  has 
been  thought  fit  to  supersede  your  commission  of  Colonel  in  the 
regiment  of  militia  lying  in  part  in  the  County  of  Worcester  and 
partly  in  the  County  of  Middlesex,  and  your  said  commission  is 
superseded  accordingly. 

I  am,  sir. 
Your  most  obt  and  humble  servant, 

Jno.  Cotton,  Deputy  Secretary. 

"Give  my  compliments  to  the  Governor  and  say  to  him 
that  I  consider  myself  twice  honored,  but  more  in  being 
superseded  than  in  being  commissioned,  and  (holding  up 
the  letter)  that  I  thank  him  for  this,  since  the  motive  that 
dictated  it  is  evidence  that  I  am  what  he  is  not,  a  friend  to 
my  country!" 

^'Colonel  Ward  forever!"  shouted  the  fast-grown  crowd 
as  the  cloyed  and  chesty  royalist  dug  his  spurs  into  his 
horse 's  flanks  and  shot  out  of  view  back  to  Boston. 

The  Governor  could  revoke  the  commission,  but  he  could 
not  stifle  the  breath  of  liberty  nor  shut  Ward  out  of  the 
Governor's  own  royal  council,  to  which,  against  the  Gov- 
ernor's negative,  the  patriot  Colonists,  as  we  have  seen, 
elected  him  in  1768,  notwithstanding  even  then  tlu'eats  of 
subjection  by  the  King's  soldiers. 

WARD   IN   THE  FRENCH   AND   INDIAN   WARS 

There  was  another  thing  Ward  carried  with  him  besides 
the  breath  of  liberty  which  the  Governor  could  not  revoke. 
It  was,  as  with  Washington,  a  knowledge  of  war, 
which  he  had  learned  under  the  King's  generals  in 
the    French    and    Indian    fights    in    the    wilderness.     In 


ARTEMAS    WARD  13 

1755-1758  such  was  his  innate  martial  mettle  that, 
like  over  one  third  of  the  able-bodied  youth  of  Massa- 
chusetts, with  Colonel  Williams'  rcf^ment  of  foot, 
he  left  the  feathered  nest  of  a  country  seat  and  the  j^olden 
spoon  of  a  proud  family^  to  risk  life  and  limb  in  the 
battles  in  the  wilds  of  the  north.  Like  Washincrton  under 
Braddoek,  under  General  Abercrombie,  Lord  Howe  and 
Williams,  he  was  here  first  to  follow  the  ^leam  and  show 
the  mettle  of  the  man  in  a  school  of  war  the  teachincrs  of 
which  he  was  so  soon  to  turn  back  against  his  English 
tutors  in  the  fierce  reflex  of  Revolution. 

The  very  diary  in  which  on  page  after  page  he  wrote 
down  each  day  his  campaigns  still  lies  at  the  estate^  of  his 
great-grandson,  the  late  Samuel  D.  Ward  of  Shrewsbury. 
Taking  it  up  and  reading  it  to-day,  it  is  easy  for  us  to  see 
in  Ward  from  the  first  the  brand  of  unsullied  courage. 

The  crux  of  the  expedition  in  which  he  advanced  from 
Major  to  Lieutenant-colonel  lay  in  the  retreat  from  the 
farthest  point  in  tliis  particular  campaign  against  Tieonde- 
roga.  The  command  that  came  to  leave  the  breastwork, 
where  at  imminent  danger  to  his  life  he  stood  amid  his 
falling  comrades  for  one  whole  day  of  bloody  attack,  Ward 
stigmatizes  in  his  diary  under  that  date  as  given  at  a  point 
whence  they  so  soon  "shamefully  retreated!"  Had  the 
faintest  flaw  of  the  fear  of  a  coward  lurked  in  the  iron  of 
Artemas  Ward's  blood,  it  would  have  manifested  itself  in 
these  fierce  and  virgin  battles  where  were  hand-to-hand 
fights  in  trackless  wilds  against  the  cunning  of  superior 
foes.     Nowhere  is  there  a  hint  of  anything  but  dare  and 


iHis  wife  was  a  great  grand-daughter  of  Increase  Mather. 
2 Adjacent  to  the  General  Ward  homestead.     On  the   ancient  farm 
Artemas  Ward  was  bom,  Nov.  7,  1727. 


14  MASTER    MINDS 

risk.  The  peril  ahead  was  in  a  black,  untrodden  wilderness 
which  masked  redskins,  who  were  backed  in  turn  by  the 
army  of  the  French.  Privation  and  death  lay  there, 
before  which  indeed  two  thousand  of  his  comrades  were  to 
fall,  including*  his  particular  leader,  Lord  Howe.  But  with 
all  the  spirit  of  his  being.  Ward  was  for  action  and  against 
retreat. 

In  broken  battle-lines  in  deadly  engagements  beyond 
Lake  Champlain,  hand  to  hand  with  Indians  and  French, 
it  was  no  longer  a  baptism  of  water  of  which  he  first 
■^ATote,  ''My  horse  flung  me  into  the  river,"  but  a  baptism 
of  blood.  From  eight  in  the  morning  till  nine  at  night 
under  steady  fire  at  the  farthest  breastwork,  with  the  born 
soldier's  freedom  from  adjectives  or  emotion,  he  simply 
records,  "Many  slain,"  though  from  the  forests  on  the  way 
he  passes  details  of  bleeding  men  emerging  '^ scalped  alive" 
to  tell  of  ambush  and  of  butchery ! 

WARD    THE    FIRST    AMERICAN    GENERAL   IN    COMMAND    OF    THE 
REVOLUTION 

Such  a  knowledge  of  war  began  by  the  patriots  to  be 
first  systematically  turned  against  the  British  October  27th, 
1774,  when  the  Provincial  Congress  appointed  Artemas 
Ward  general  officer,  together  with  Jedediah  Preble  and 
Seth  Pomeroy.  The  first  of  the  latter  two  not  serving, 
General  Ward  was  left  first  in  rank,  senior  officer  of  the 
Revolution  and  the  first  American  appointed  General  in 
actual  command. 

March  9th,  1775,  the  Committee  of  Safety  was  organized 
"to  alarm,  accoutre  and  assemble  militia,"  and  to  establish 
at  Concord  and  at  Worcester  stores  for  powder-magazines, 
cannon  and  guns. 


Ancient  Kitchen  of  the  Ward  Homestead— With  Doo:;  and  Knocker 


ARTEMA8    WARD  15 

April  18th,  1775,  it  was  this  accumulation  of  stores  that 
called  out  Oafjo's  orders  "to  reconnoitre  and  destroy." 
Tho  troops  that  obeyed  the  order  brought  on  the  clash  at 
Lexington  and  Concord. 

Just  before  this  oiitburst  of  the  Revolution,  General 
Artemas  Ward,  when  all  realized  that  they  must  "hang 
together  or  hang  separately,"  left  the  Provincial  Congress 
at  its  adjournment  April  15th,  expecting  May  10th  to  con- 
vene with  it  for  a  day  of  prayer  and  fasting.  In  this  spirit 
of  deep  and  breathless  solemnity,  he  retired  to  the  stillness 
of  his  home,  the  other  patriots  doing  the  same.  Samuel 
Adams  and  John  Hancock  (marked  to  be  sent  to  the  King 
for  trial)  awaited  events  in  the  prayerful  quiet  of  the 
house  of  Rev.  Jonas  Clark  at  Lexington. 

Hard  upon  the  outbreak  of  April  19th,  when  the  relay  of 
horsemen  alarmed  every  highway  and  turnpike  with  the 
simple  and  oft-repeated  alarm,  "To  arms!  to  arms!  the 
war's  begun!"  there  came  at  Shrewsbury  as  everywhere 
else  the  breaking  of  a  passion  whose  pressure  had  for  years 
been  clamped  down  nowhere  deeper  than  in  the  Ward 
household. 

In  the  glow  of  the  great  fireplace  of  the  ancient  kitchen 
we  can  stand  in  now,  when  the  ponderous  blinds  had  been 
tightly  drawn  and  the  burnished  guns  still  overhead  hung 
waiting  to  speak  their  message,  the  letters  of  the  Commit- 
tee of  Correspondence  had  here  been  read  time  and  time 
again.  Here  faces  gleamed  with  light  other  than  the  back- 
log's and  drank  inspiration  other  than  that  from  the  crane. 
For  years  only  brains  were  fired.  The  guns  hung  ready 
but  mute.  But  at  last  these  flintlocks,^  as  a  last  resort,  en- 
forced the  dictates  of  men's  minds. 


iThese  guns  were  used  in  secret  drilling,  and  the  old  kitchen  is 
yet  marked  with  dents  from  the  clumsy  barrels. 


16  MASTER    MINDS 

April  20th  President  Warren^  of  the  Committee  of  Safety 
accompanied  the  general  alarm  by  this  call  to  towns : 

"Our  all  is  at  stake.  Death  and  desolation  are 
the  consequence  of  delay.  every  moment  is  infinite- 
LY PRECIOUS.  One  hour's  delay  may  deluge  your  coun- 
try IN  BLOOD  AND  ENTAIL  PERPETUAL  SLAVERY  UPON  THE 
FEW  OF  OUR  PATRIOTS  THAT  MAY  SURVIVE  THE  CARNAGE.'' 

It  was  the  drive  of  this  compelling  passion  of  April  19th 
that  enlisted  before  the  town  of  Boston,  by  Saturday  night, 
over  sixteen  thousand  patriots  and.  in  their  lead,  accom- 
panied by  his  sons,  Ithamar  and  Nahum.  Artemas  "Ward 
as  General  at  the  head  of  the  army.^ 

Immediately  General  Ward  took  command  of  the  troops 
inpouring  from  every  side,  not  only  from  the  Province  of 
Massachusetts,  but  from  New  Hampshire,  Rhode  Island, 
Vermont  and  Connecticut.  It  was  no  frolic  or  foray,  for 
beyond  these  colonies  on  to  New  York  went "  f/ie  shot  heard 
round  the  world,"  and  following  right  upon  the  dispatch 
of  the  news  at  Lexington  and  Concord,  the  patriots  in  New 
York  arose  as  one  man,  as  is  shown  by  this  "intelligence,"' 
at  once  posted  to  General  Ward  and  still  found  in  his 
effects : 


iWarren,  as  if  anticipating  his  fate  at  Bunker  Hill,  transported  his 
wife  and  children  to  a  house  on  Main  Street,  Worcester,  still  standing 
where  it  has  been  moved,   1   Fountain   Street. 

2First  to  bring  the  patriots  kiUed  (forty-nine  killed,  fifty-seven 
wounded)  at  the  bridge  and  at  Lexington,  General  Ward  ordered 
out  one  lieutenant,  two  sergeants  and  fifty  rank  and  file.  For 
bread  and  other  provisions  for  the  assembling  thousands,  Colonel 
Gardner  he  dispatched  to  Eoxbury;  for  cannon  and  ordnance,  Col- 
onel Bond  to  Cambridge. 

3From  a  manuscript  at  homestead. 


ABTEMASWARD  17 

Newport,  April  26,  1775. 

Sir:  It  is  with  pleasure  that  I  communicate  to  you  by  express 
the  following  important  intelligence: 

By  a  vessell  just  arrived  here  from  New  York,  we  are  informed 
that  the  news  of  the  engagement  between  the  regulars  and  the 
provincials  got  to  New  York  on  Sunday  last  between  forenoon  and 
afternoon  service;  that  the  people  of  the  city  immediately  rose, 
disarmed  the  soldiers,  possessed  themselves  of  the  fort  and  mag- 
azines, in  which  they  found  about  1500  arms;  that  they  unloaded 
two  transports  bound  to  Boston,  Captain  Montague  not  dareing  to 
give  them  any  assistance;  that  a  third  transport  has  sailed  while 
they  were  seizing  the  two  others,  and  the  people  had  fitted  out  a 
vessell  in  order  to  take  and  bring  them  back;  that  they  had  forbid 
all  the  pilots  from  bringing  up  any  King's  ships;  that  Captain  Mon- 
tague was  not  able  to  procure  a  pilot  in  the  whole  city,  and  that  the 
inhabitants  were  preparing  and  putting  themselves  into  the  best 
position  of  defense. 

The  gentleman  who  brings  this  intelligence  left  Elizabethtown 
yesterday  morning,  and  tells  us  that  on  Monday  the  committee  of 
that  town  and  county  met  and  agreed  to  raise  one  thousand  men 
immediately  to  assist  in  the  defense  of  New  York  against  any  attacks 
that  may  be  made  against  them.  I  have  the  honor  to  assure  you  that 
the  intelligence  may  be  depended  on,  and  that  I  am  Sir, 

Yr  hum   Ser 

John  Collins, 
Chairman  of  the   Committee 

of  Inspection. 
The  Commanding  officer  at  Eoxbury. 

Thus,  to  SO  great  an  extent  conceived  and  born  in  New 
England,  the  Revolution,  in  whose  creation  Artemas  Ward 
was  an  initial  master  mind,  spread  from  New  England  over 
a  continent. 

The  generals  commanding  the  troops  from  the  other  col- 
onies yielded  deference  to  General  Ward  as  head,  defer- 
ence being  thus  yielded  by  General  Spencer  of  Connecticut, 
General  Greene  of  Rhode  Island  and  General  Folsom  of 


18  MASTER    MINDS 

New  Hampshire,  "Ward's  orders  to  be  in  the  form  of 
requests. 

The  titamc  task  of  the  organization  of  an  unformed  and 
unarticulated  patriot  army  fell  to  General  Ward.  His  it 
was  first  to  face  the  stupendous  hurden  of  setting  in  order 
nearly  twenty  thousand  troops,  arising,  as  it  were,  in  a 
night,  to  stand  before  him  in  the  morning,  a  tatterdemalion 
multitude  of  high-strung  and  independent  spirits. 

Already  senior  officer  in  command  of  this  first  army  of 
the  American  Revolution,  Artemas  Ward,  May  19,  1775,  by 
the  following  commission  was  elevated  by  the  Provincial 
Congress  to  the  post  of  Commander-in-chief : 

The  Congress  of  the  Colony  of  Mass. 
To  the  Hon.  Artemas  Ward,  Esq. 

Greeting:  We,  reposing  especial  trust  and  confidence  in  your 
courage  and  good  conduct,i  do  by  these  presents  constitute  and 
appoint  you,  the  said  Artemas  Ward,  to  be  General  and  Commander- 
in-chief  of  all  the  forces  raised  by  this  Congress  aforesaid  for  the 
defense  of  this  and  other  American  Colonies.  You  are  therefore 
confidently  and  intelligently  to  discharge  the  duty  of  a  general  in 
leading,  ordering  and  exercising  the  forces  in  arms,  both  inferior 
officers  and  soldiers,  and  to  keep  them  in  good  order  and  discipline; 
and  they  are  hereby  ordered  to  obey  you  as  their  General;  and 
you  are  yourself  to  observe  and  follow  such  orders  and  instructions 
as  you  shall  from  time  to  time  receive  from  this  or  any  future 
Congress  or  House  of  Representatives  of  this  colony  or  the  Com- 
mittee of  Safety,  so  far  as  said  committee  is  empowered  by  this 
commission  to  order  and  instruct  you  for  the  defense  of  this  and 
the  other  colonies;  and  to  demean  yourself  according  to  military 


i"The  army  reposed  great  confidence  in  its  officers.  They  were 
the  free  choice  of  the  men.  Many  had  that  influence  over  their 
fellow  men  that  accompanies  character.  Ward  was  a  true  patriot, 
had  many  private  virtues  and  was  prudent  and  highly  esteemed." 
— Frothingham,  "Siege  of  Boston,"  p.  103. 


ARTEM  AS    WARD  19 

rules  and  discipline    established  by  said  Congress  in  pursuance  of 

the  trust  reposed  in  you. 

By  order  of  the  Congress, 

19  May,  A.  D.  1775. 

T       TtT  Pres.  Pro  Tern. 

Jos.  Warren. 

General  Ward's  ori^nal  placing,''  of  this  vast  unformed 
force  of  citizen  minute-men  about  the  besiegino^  line  of  some 
twenty  miles  was  so  stratefj^ic  that  Washincrton  upon  his 
arrival  found,  in  the  large,  its  position  from  a  military 
point  of  view  unchangeable.  Lord  Howe's  estimate  of  his 
enemy's  lines  and  their  position  bespoke  an  even  higher 
appraisal  of  General  Ward's  strong  line  of  impregnable 
blockade  into  which  he  divided  this  multitudinous  array  of 
men. 

"The  Objective  at  Bunker  Tlill"  is  a  late  booklet 
introducing  us  to  the  English  letters  as  found  in 
England  by  the  author.  Colonel  Fisher.  Through  these 
letters  of  Lord  Ho^ve,  General  Clinton  and  others,  new  light 
is  thrown  on  the  American  Revolution,  and  nowhere  more 
than  on  the  underestimated  work  of  General  Ward,  whose 
original  laying  of  the  siege-lines  of  Boston,  as  well  as  his 
final  work  on  Dorchester  Heights,  the  English  deemed  im- 
pregnable, and  spoke  of  with  well-weighed  esteem. 

A  week  after  occurred  a  "frolick"  at  Noddle's  and  Hog 
Islands — a  frolic  which,  while  the  engagement  was  a  minor 
one  and,  compared  to  Bunker  Hill,  but  a  foot-hill  to  a 
mountain,  betrayed  a  deep-laid  and  permanent  plan  of 
General  Ward's  army,  which  was  not  only  to  hem  in  the 
five  thousand  King's  regulars  within  the  besieged  town  of 
Boston,  hid  to  starve  them  out  by  corralling  all  near-by 
stock  and  pro-visions. 

From  headquarters,  Cambridge,  May  27th  and  28th,  1775, 
original  letters  of  General  Ward  picturesquely  paint  the 


20  MASTER    MINDS 

local  colors  of  the  raid  which  any  moment  may  swing  into 
the  decisive  engagement.  He  wrote  as  to  Hog  Island  that 
was  attacked  by  the  regulars : 

Our  party,  consisting  of  about  six  hundred  men  and  two  field- 
pieces,  have  just  been  forwarded  to  them.  They  have  sent  for 
reinforcements.  But  it  is  prudent  not  to  weaken  our  company 
more.  Our  men  have  all  been  ordered  to  be  in  the  greatest 
readiness  this  night.  I  doubt  not  your  camp  will  be  in  the  same 
readiness.  There  have  been  great  movements  in  Boston  this  day. 
They  have  viewed  arms,  etc.,  etc. 

We  have  intelligence  by  General  Putnam,  who  has  just  come 
from  Chelsea,  that  Hog  Island  and  Noddle's  Island  are  swept 
clean;  all  the  live-stock,  as  much  as  the  total  amount  thereafter 
seized  by  the  English,  is  taken  off  by  our  party.  An  armed 
schooner  upon  Winnisimmet  ways  was  burned,  although  there  was 
a  heavy  fire  kept  up  continually.  She  had  about  sixteen  pieces 
of  cannon. 

I  have  the  pleasure  to  inform  you  that  we  have  not  lost  one 
man. 

I  am  obliged  to  you  for  offering  me  a  reinforcement,  but  at 
present  we  apprehend  we  have  no  special  need  of  them.  We  only 
request  you  to  hold  your  men  in  readiness  if  we  should. 


BUNKER  HILL 

Such  minor  fights  serve  but  as  an  index  to  the  forces 
about  to  break  upon  one  another  on  the  two  great  penin- 
sular hills  commanding  the  city — the  keys  to  the  situation, 
Bunker  Hill  and  Dorchester  Heights.  Between  these  two 
heights  of  Boston  on  the  north  and  south,  with  the  blue 
strip  of  the  Charles  between  them,  lie  the  American  Army 
on  the  Cambridge  side  and  the  King's  regulars  cooped 
up  in  Boston.  The  American  belt-line  of  troops  General 
Ward  stretched  in  a  semi-circle  over  twelve  miles  from 
Winter  Hill  on  the  left  wing  to  Roxbury  church  on  the  right 


ABTEMA8    WARD  21 

wing.  It  comprised  by  this  time  over  sixteen  thousand 
colonists.  The  English  army,  which  consisted  of  at  first 
some  five  thousand  troops,  was  now  to  become,  soon  after 
Lexington  and  Concord,  ten  thousand,  through  reinforce- 
ments from  England  by  Generals  Howe,  Clinton  and  Bur- 
goyne. 

The  situation  is  in  the  prepossession  of  the  two  hills. 
With  a  judgment  confirmed  by  the  result,  General  Ward 
was  opposed,  for  strategic  reasons,  to  their  occupying 
with  a  fortification  Breed's  Hill  and  Bunker  Hill.  So 
was  General  Warren.  They  called  it  at  once  "rash  and 
imprudent."  But  others  in  the  council  of  war  alleging 
that  the  army  was  growing  restless  and  the  countiy  dissat- 
isfied, voted  to  proceed. 

Upon  the  decision  of  the  Committee  of  Safety  to  fortify 
it,  Bunker  and  Breed's  Hills  at  once  became  the  storm- 
centre. 

On  a  bright  moonlight  night,  June  16th,  1775,  Colonel 
William  Prescott  with  over  one  thousand  men  set  out  to 
throw  up  and  occupy  a  redoubt  and  breastw^ork.  In  the 
rear  two  hundred  yards  back  behind  a  low  stone  waU,  Cap- 
tain Gridley,  the  engineer  of  the  works,  held  the  left  flank. 
Reed  and  Stark  the  next  morning  increased  the  number  to 
between  twelve  and  fifteen  hundred  men.  Against  this 
force  was  flung  the  entire  attack  of  the  British  army  and 
navy. 

Over  three  thousand  of  the  ten  thousand  King's  troops 
had  begun  to  cross  by  one  o  'clock  on  the  17th.  Since  day- 
break the  frigate  Lively  had  been  firing  at  the  exposed 
works,  which  soon,  together  with  burning  Charlestown, 
became  the  target  for  not  only  the  Lively,  but  the  frigates 
Somerset,  Symmetry,  Cerberus,  Falcon,  Glasgow  and  four 
floating  batteries. 


22  MASTER    MINDS 

'June  20th,  1775,  seven  men  of  the  Provincial  Congress, 
acting  for  the  Committee  of  Safety,  three  days  after  the 
battle  forwarded  this  record  of  the  engagement  to  the  Con- 
tinental Congress: 

"We  think  it  an  indisputable  duty  to  inform  you  that 
reinforcements  from  Ireland,  both  of  horse  and  foot,  being 
arrived  (the  number  unknown),  and  having  intelligence 
that  General  Gage  was  about  to  take  possession  of  the 
advantageous  posts  in  Charlestown  and  in  Dorchester 
Point,  the  Committee  of  Safety  advised  that  our  troops 
should  prepossess  them  if  possible. 

"Accordingly  on  Friday  evening,  the  16th  instant,  this 
was  effected  by  about  twelve  hundred  men.  About  day- 
light on  Saturday  morning  their  line  of  circumvallation  on 
a  small  hill  south  of  Bunker's  Hill  in  Charlestown  was 
closed. 

' '  At  this  time  the  '  Lively '  man-of-war  began  to  fire  upon 
them.  A  number  of  our  enemy's  ships,  tenders,  scows  and 
floating  batteries  soon  came  up,  from  all  of  which  the  fire 
was  general  by  twelve  o'clock.  About  two  the  enemy  began 
to  land  at  a  point  which  leads  out  towards  Noddle 's  Island, 
and  immediately  marched  up  to  our  intrenchments,  from 
which  they  were  twice  repulsed,  but  in  the  third  attack 
forced  them.  Our  forces  which  were  in  the  lines,  as  well 
as  those  sent  out  for  their  support,  were  greatly  annoyed 
by  balls  and  bombs  from  Cops  Hill,  the  ships,  scows,  etc. 
At  this  time  the  buildings  in  Charlestown  appeared  in 
flames  in  almost  every  quarter,  kindled  by  hot  balls,  and 
are  laid  since  in  ashes.  Though  the  scene  was  most  horri- 
ble and  altogether  new  to  most  of  the  men,  yet  many  stood 
and  received  wounds  by  swords  and  bayonets  before  they 
quitted  their  lines.  At  five  o'clock  the  enemy  were  in  full 
possession  of  all  the  posts  within  the  isthmus.     In  the  even- 


WaTcHIM.      IHK     liATILK    llF     IUNK  KK     IIlIJ. 


ARTEMASWARD  23 

ing  and  night  following,  General  Ward  extended  his 
intrenchments  before  made  at  the  stone  house  over  Winter 
Hill.  About  six  o'clock  of  the  same  day  the  enemy  began 
to  cannonade  Roxbury  from  Boston  Neck  and  elsewhere, 
which  they  continued  twenty-four  hours  with  little  spirit 
and  less  effect," 

"If  any  error  has  been  made  on  our  side,  it  was  in 
taking  a  post  so  much  exposed. ' ' 

When  the  bombs  were  bursting  over  Charlestown  and 
the  buildings  "kindled  by  hot  balls"  were  in  flames,  two 
shadows  crossed  the  path  of  the  Commander-in-chief, 
Artemas  Ward.  They  were  cast  by  the  General 's  third  son, 
Tommy,  who  had  been  left  at  home,  but  who,  rebelling  at 
staying  there,  took  hold  tightly  by  the  hand  a  lad  with 
whom  he  had  beaten  his  way  from  Shrewsbury  forty  miles 
away  and  appeared  breathlessly  headed  for  the  battle. 

"How's  this,  Tommy?"  vociferated  the  thunderstruck 
Commander  to  the  young  patriot,  who  insisted  on  joining 
his  brothers  on  the  fire-zone.     "You  must  go  right  back!" 

The  impression  has  too  often  been  left  that  General  Ward 
remained  inactive,  contenting  himself  with  simply  scrib- 
bling in  his  diary,  "The  battle  is  going  on  at  Charles- 
town."  But  it  is  not  so.  General  orders  from  head- 
quarters^ showed  incessant  activity. 

It  was  9  o  'clock  before  Colonel  Prescott  applied  to  Ward 
for  reinforcements,  as  Prescott  himself  did  not  believe  the 
British  would  attack. 

At  eleven  o'clock  General  Ward  ordered  to  Bunker  Hill, 
to  reinforce  Prescott,  the  whole  of  Colonel  Stark's  and 
Reed's  regiments  of    New  Hampshire.     This    was    three 


iGeneral  Ward's  headquarters  were  in  the  building  later  occupied 
by  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes,  and  now  known  as  his  house. 


24  MASTER    MINDS 

hours  before  the  three  thousand  English  began  to  land. 
The  remainder  of  the  Massachusetts  forces  at  about  one 
o'clock  he  ordered  to  go.  The  battle  began  at  three.  Late 
in  the  day,  notwithstanding  the  large  possibility  of  the 
English  yet  striking  at  the  centre  at  Cambridge,  General 
Ward  sent  his  own  regiment  and  Patterson's  and  Gardner's 
to  reinforce  the  patriots  in  the  battle.  Companies  even  of 
these  last  sent  arrived  in  time  to  take  posts  as  directed  by 
Putnam.  Certain  other  companies,  though  sent  with  these 
and  long  before  these,  failed  to  report  for  action  over  the 
fire-zone  of  the  cannonaded  Neck.  In  reality  they  never 
got  there,  but  stampeded. 

June  17th,  1775,  a  general  order  from  headquarters  was 

sent  to  the  effect  that  "the  several  companies  in  

regiments  parade  precisely  at  five  o'clock  this  afternoon 
at  our  alarm-post  with  two  days'  provisions,  well  dressed, 
their  arms  and  ammunition  in  good  order,  ready  to  march 
to  regiment  orders." 

June  30th,  in  a  record  written  by  John  Martin  to  Presi- 
dent Stiles,  it  is  also  stated  that  application  to  Ward  for 
aid  brought  Colonel  Putnam  a  large  reinforcement  about 
noon. 

Though  Ward's  aide  hastened  under  cross-fire  more 
than  once  through  the  enfiladed  Neck  in  carrying 
his  chief's  commands,  to  maintain  a  central  direc- 
torate or  an  intelligent  line  of  communication,  or  to  have 
exact  and  speedy  intelligence  of  the  enemy's  surprising 
frontal  attack,  was  indeed  beyond  human  power.  When 
Ward  knew  of  the  attack,  which  at  first  not  even  Colonel 
Prescott^  believed  would  come  (as  appears  from  the  above 


1' '  The  troops,  who  had  worked  all  night  and  half  of  a  hot  June 
day  in  throwing  up  intrenchments  on  Breed's  Hill,  were  not  relieved 


ARTEMASWARD  25 

ordere  long  before  the  battle  ended),  he  acted.  But 
it  took  him,  considering  the  shortness  of  the  battle,  a  long 
time  to  know.  Captain  Aaron  Smith's  (the  Shrewsbury 
soldier)  statement  that  General  Ward  dispatched  messen- 
gers across  who  were  interfered  with  and  sent  back  by  Tory 
sympathizers  witliin  the  American  lines  was  no  doubt  but 
an  undershot  of  the  full  truth.  Other  reasons  for  delay 
also  abounded — reasons  beyond  General  Ward's  control. 
For  instance,  when  the  Conmiittee  of  Safety  asked  for  the 
four  best  horses  for  General  Ward's  messengers,  the  Com- 
mittee of  Supply  refused,  saying  there  were  none  except 
those  unfit  or  wanted. 

The  heat  of  the  battle  (over  at  five)  occupied  but  ninety 
minutes.  Waterloo  lasted  one  day  with  thirty-four  per 
cent,  of  the  number  engaged  killed ;  Gettysburg  lasted  three 
days  with  twenty-five  per  cent,  of  the  Union  Army  lost; 
Bunker  Hill  lasted  only  ninety  minutes  with  over  thirty 
per  cent,  of  the  number  engaged  Idlled.  Therefore,  the 
bloody  issue  of  Bunker  Hill  was  decided  with  dreadful 
impetus.  It  was  not  only,  proportionately  speaking,  one  of 
the  bloodiest  battles  in  history,  but  the  carnage  was  con- 
densed into  an  abnormally  short  period.  Considering  this, 
the  suddenness  of  the  onslaught  and  the  slowness  of  the 
intelligence,  it  is  seen  that  it  was  absolutely  impossible, 
after  the  first  intelligence  of  the  enemy's  frontal  charge, 
for  General  Ward  to  have  wisely  acted  sooner  than  he  did. 

Yet  before  and    during    this    ninety  minutes'    conflict, 


by  others Colonel  Preseott    at  first    did  not  believe  the 

British  would  attack  his  redoubt,  and  when  he  saw  the  movement  he 
felt  assured  he  could  easily  repulse  any  assailants,  and  it  was  nine 
o'clock  before  he  applied  to  General  Ward  for  reinforcements." — 
Harper's  Encyclopedia  of  United  States  History,  Vol  I,  p.  445. 


26  MASTER    MINDS 

General  Ward  constantly  ordered  troops  to  march  and  con- 
tinually gave  his  orders  to  reinforce. 

Lord  Howe's  and  General  Clinton's  approval  of  the 
battle 's  value  to  the  Americans  reveals  in  their  letters  a  far 
higher  appraisal  of  Ward's  generalship  than  we  have 
hitherto  awarded  to  General  Ward. 

The  military  probabilities  were  all  against  the  English 
doing  what  they  did.  Their  first  master-stroke  of  strategy 
would  have  been  to  strike  at  the  centre  of  the  Army  at 
Cambridge.  Sixty-three  half  barrels  of  powder,  only  one-half 
pound  for  each  soldier,  in  case  of  a  general  engag-ement, 
were  all  "the  necessary  article"  the  patriots  possessed! 
General  Ward  knew  this.  But  even  to  explain  his  course  he 
dared  not  then  expose  the  fact  that  this,  together  with  his 
fear  of  an  attack  on  the  centre,  was  the  reason  of  his 
caution.  Had  the  English  acted  up  to  the  best  military 
strategy  and  struck  at  the  centre  at  the  American  Army 
with  its  one-half  pound  of  powder  to  a  man,  divided  by  a 
river  and  thinly  stretching  twenty  miles  all  the  way  from 
Winter  Hill  to  Eoxbury,  they  could  have  had  a  chance  to 
destroy  it  piecemeal.  Ward  did  not  know  that  they  would 
not  live  up  to  their  opportunity.  He  had  knowledge  in 
fact,  as  it  afterwards  proved,  that  it  was  General  Clinton's 
plan !  General  Clinton 's  plan  was  to  cut  off  the  patriots  at 
the  Neck  and  also  then  to  strike  at  Cambridge.  Gage  and 
Howe  shrank  at  the  last  moment  from  it,  for  which  they 
were  later  roundly  criticised  in  England.^ 

Till  h^  found  out  for  certainty  their  plan  of  frontal 
attack  upon  Bunker  Hill,  Ward  had  to  guard  against  this 
master-stroke    of    strategy    by    the    British,   which    was 


iSee  Fisher,  "The  Objective  at  Bunker  Hill."     Also  letters  of 
Howe  and  Clinton. 


ARTEMA8    WARD  27 

to  bottle  up  the  patriot  troops  by  simply  landing 
at  the  neck  of  the  peninsula  and  thas  corking 
the  isthmian  flask,  with  the  Americans  inside  unable  to 
get  out.  Indeed  this,  we  see,  was  the  strategy  of  the  over- 
ruled English  General,  who  was  not  overruled  till  the  last 
minute.  With  the  gunboats  Lively,  Glasgow,  Somerset, 
Symmetry,  Falcon,  Cerberus  and  four  floating  batteries 
pouring  in  hot  shot  from  the  water-ways  all  about,  had 
they  done  this,  and  had  Ward  ordered  all  of  his  army 
into  the  trap,  they  could  indeed  have  annihilated  the  cut-off 
American  columns  at  Bunker  Hill. 

After  the  battle.  Ward  was  cleared  and  confirmed  by  the 
report  to  the  Provincial  Congress  June  20th,  but  three  days 
later.  This  stated  that  in  the  opinion  of  the  seven  men 
constituting  the  committee,  than  whom  no  men  on  earth 
were  fitter  to  judge,  that  "if  any  error  has  been  made  on 
our  side,  it  was  in  taking  a  post  so  much  exposed" — the 
very  last  thing  Ward  had  said  before  the  battle. 

But,  after  all.  Ward's  troops  won  a  moral  victory.  One 
thing  was  left  of  Bunker  Hill  to  the  patriots,  and  that  the 
greatest — a  demonstration  both  to  themselves  and  the 
enemy  of  the  deatlilessness  of  their  inspired  cause.  It 
gleamed  out  of  the  American  gaze  from  the  time  when  they 
met  the  whites  of  the  enemy's  eyes  and  made  a  martial  tar- 
get of  their  waistbands.  It  sank  in  tliroughout  the  rake-off 
of  the  embattled  farmer's  fatal  aim  till  the  Americans'  last 
dram  of  powder  was  wasted  away,  and  cannon  from  land 
and  floating  batteries  swept  them  from  their  feet  at  the 
third  charge.  It  survived  the  triple  fire  and  repeated  itself 
at  tlie  engagement  farther  back.  Then  it  appeared  that 
England  in  Ward 's  army  was  not  to  face  a  rabble  of  rebels, 
but  a  belligerent  and  equal  foe.  Then  it  broke  once  for  all 
the  flippant  morale  of  English  arms  in  America. 


28  MASTER    MINDS 

"I  would  sell  them  another  hill  at  the  same  price,"  said 
General  Greene. 

Washington  upon  hearing  of  the  battle  declared  that 
"the  liberties  of  America  are  now  secure." 

To  General  Ward  at  headquarters  Colonel  Prescott 
reported  the  result  of  Bunker  Hill.  General  Ward 
thanked  him,  but  wisely  refused  to  let  him  go  back  to 
recapture  the  hill.  A  short  time  later  General  Ward 
thanked  the  troops  under  him  as  a  whole,  saying  to  them 
on  June  24th: 

' '  The  General  orders  his  thanks  to  be  given  these  officers 
and  soldiers  who  behaved  so  gallantly  at  the  late  action  in 
Charlestown.  Such  bravery  gives  the  General  sensible 
pleasure,  as  he  is  thereby  fully  satisfied  that  we  shall  fully 
come  off  victorious,  and  triumph  over  the  enemies  of  free- 
dom and  America." 

The  day  before  this  order,  June  20th,  three  days  after  the 
battle,  realizing  how  the  confusion,  slowness  and  insubordi- 
nation of  officers  had  hindered  General  Ward  in  reinforc- 
ing Bunker  Hill,  Connecticut  voted  to  place  the  whole  of 
its  troops  under  General  Ward,  and  advised  the  other  Colo- 
nies plainly  to  do  the  same  thing  openly,  as  it  had  so  far 
been  but  a  matter  of  deference. 

That  evening  as  General  Artemas  Ward  extended  his 
lines  and  entrenchments  over  Winter  Hill,  it  was  not  to 
abandon  himself  to  despair.  Even  then  inspired  by  this 
test  of  the  American  Army 's  courage,  there  no  doubt  arose 
before  him  the  other  key-point  to  the  sifuation — the  un-lost 
hill  on  the  southern  peninsula,  Dorchester  Heights. 
Whether  or  not  Ward  then  thought  of  Dorchester  Heights, 
the  fact  is,  the  time  soon  came  when  he  did,  and  it  re- 
mained to  be  his  vindication  and  by  his  victory  there  to 
prove  to  the  world  his  courage  and  his  generalship. 


ARTEMAS    WARD  29 

THE  ARRIVAL  OF  WASHINGTON 

Two  days  before  the  Battle  of  Bunker  Hill  and  not  at 
all  because  of  it,  at  Philndolphia  the  Continental  Concrress 
appointed  Washington  Commander-in-chief  of  the  Conti- 
nental Army. 

The  difference  between  Ward  and  Washinprton  is  the 
difference  between  two  great  epochs — the  Continental  and 
the  Provincial  or  Colonial.  Washington  incarnated  the 
Continental,  Ward  the  Provincial. 

Artemas  Ward  by  the  Congress  of  Massachusetts,  at  that 
time  heading  as  he  did  New  England  and  the  Provincial 
cause,  had  been  appointed  Commander-in-chief  of  the 
Provincial  Army  by  the  Pro\'incial  Congress. 

But  the  Eevolution  had  groMTi  out  of  the  Provincial 
period  into  the  Continental.  It  was,  therefore,  time  to  pass 
its  leadership  over  to  a  Continental  cause  instead  of  a 
Provincial  cause ;  a  Continental  Congress  instead  of  a  Pro- 
vincial Congress;  a  Continental  capitol  instead  of  a  Pro- 
vincial capitol;  a  Continental  army  instead  of  a  Provincial 
army;  a  Continental  commander-in-chief  instead  of  a  Pro- 
vincial commander-in-chief. 

The  two  positions  Washington  and  Ward  held  were  not 
identical.  They  were  not  the  same.  The  Provincial  lead- 
ership was  not  destroyed,  but  fulfilled  and  passed  out  of 
the  Provincial  into  the  Continental,  the  new  embodiment  of 
which  was  Washington. 

There  were  great  New  Englanders  who  were  later  sign- 
ers of  the  Declaration  of  Independence  like  Paine,  who 
favored  Ward.^     But  for  one  great  reason  he  was  not  to  be 


i"Mr.  Paine  expressed  a  great  opinion  of  General  Ward." — Let- 
ter of  John  Adams  in  Colonel  Joseph  Ward's  Revolutionary  cor- 
respondence. 


30  31  ASTER    MINDS 

the  man.  He  had  filled  his  place  as  Provincial  leader  and 
was  to  carry  to  success  the  driving  of  the  British  from  New 
England.  He  had  not  only  filled  his  place,  but  fulfilled 
his  place.  But  he  could  not  fill  Washinsrton's  place.  For 
Washington,  chovsen  as  head  of  the  Continental  cause, 
brought  all  the  dismembered  colonies  together  into  one 
new  body — the  United  Provinces  of  North  America — by 
knotting  the  muscles  of  their  various  powers  into  one  arm — 
the  Continental  Army. 

Washington  arrived  July  2d,  1775. 

From  Nathan  Stowe's  old  order-book  in  manuscript  at 
Concord,  Washington's  general  orders  for  July  4,  1775, 
read  to  this  effect : 

"All  troops  of  the  several  colonies  which  have  been 
raised  or  are  hereafter  to  he  raised  for  the  support  and 
defense  of  the  liberties  of  America  are  received  into  the 
pay  and  service  of  the  Continental  Congress,  and  are  now 
the  troops  of  the  United  Provinces  of  North  America,  and 
it  is  hoped  that  all  distinctions  of  Colonies  will  he  laid 
aside." 

If  Washington  was  astounded  at  the  task  of  reorganiza- 
tion, it  reveals  what  a  herculean  burden  had  been  Ward's 
of  organization.  For  Washington  found  nearly  twenty 
thousand  men  whom  Ward  had  initially  organized  and  held 
together  deployed  in  so  well-planned  a  siege-line  that 
he  himself  would  not  change  it  and  the  English  could  not. 
If  "it  was  a  naked  army,  and  the  quartermaster  had  not  a 
single  dollar  in  hand;"  if  "the  troops  were  in  a  state  not 
far  from  mutiny,"  it  only  shows  all  the  more  the  hardness 
of  Ward's  initial  task  in  leading,  organizing  and  holding 
such  a  mass  of  raw  material. 


ARTEMASWARD  31 

BETWEEN  THE  LINES 

Washino-ton's  arrival  July  2d,  1775,  had  found  the 
remarkable  army  Ward  had  collected  and  held  together. 
July  9th,  at  a  council  of  war,  it  was  decided  to  maintain 
posts  as  Ward  had  placed  them  and  to  increase  the  army 
to  twenty- two  thousand. 

The  British  ai-my  across  the  Charles  in  Boston  was  then 
estimated  at  eleven  thousand  five  hundred.  To  General 
Ward  July  22d,  1775,  came  the  commission  of  Major-general 
and  the  rani?  next  to  Washinrrton,  of  second  in  command 
of  the  Continental  Army,  with  his  station  the  right  wing  at 
Dorchester  Heights. 

The  left  wing  at  Winter  and  Prospect  Hlills,  to  whose 
command  General  Lee^  was  to  succeed,  consisted  of  two 
brigades  under  Generals  Sullivan  and  Greene. 

At  the  centre,  where  were  Washington's  headquarters  at 
Cambridge,  were  two  brigades  under  Putnam. 

During  the  next  eight  months  the  siege  of  Boston  is  to  go 
on  till  March  17,  1776,  the  day  of  the  British  evacuation. 


iWard's  rival  and  detractor,  as  we  shall  see,  and  a  general  not 
only  discounted  at  the  time,  but  rated  even  lower  in  the  later  his- 
tory of  the  Eevolution. 

"Gates  and  Lee  were  placed  in  service  next  to  Washington,  and 
of  both  these  Englishmen  the  record  was  as  bad  as  it  could  be." — 
Edward  Everett  Hale  in  "Reminiscences  of  a  Hundred  Years." 

General  Lee's  pompous  and  un-American  opinions  shone  through- 
out his  meteoric  career.  Washington  deciphered  and  sent  to  a 
friend  a  sample  of  this  questionable  General's  language  as  a 
"specimen  of  his  abilities  in  that  way."  Lee's  role,  in  which 
he  later  in  his  own  language  describes  himself  as  "a  dog  in  a 
dancing  school,"  was  one  in  which  he  jealously  came  to  denounce 
Washington  himself  as  "damnably  deficient."  The  detraction 
of  General  Ward  which  he  and  other  rivals  dared,  however,  lasted 
long  enough  to   shatter  Washington's  friendship  for  Ward. 


32  MASTER    MINDS 

For  nearly  a  year  the  two  armies  lie,  the  one  over  against 
the  other.  We  open  certain  unprinted  letters  to  feel  again 
the  ferment  of  this  long  wait ;  the  excitement  of  the  chafing 
camps;  the  friction  without  collision;  the  nervous  tension 
of  the  tightening  lines;  the  momentary  convulsions  of  the 
one  at  the  slightest  alarm  in  the  other. 

Saturday  night,  July  29,  it  is  a  trembling  woman  in  the 
camp.  In  the  peak  of  a  baby's  cap  or  tucked  into  its  slip 
is  a  letter  from  "Washington  to  Ward.  We  hold  it  again  as 
"Elizabeth  Royal"  held  it,  and  we  re-read  it  even  as  at  first 
it  was  read  as  a  sentry's  lantern  trembled  across  its  page: 

KOXBURY. 

To  the  Honorable  General  Ward.i 

The  bearer,  Elizabeth  Eoyal,  wife  to  a  soldier  in  the  Sixty-third 
Regiment,  has  obtained  leave  from  the  General  to  go  into  Boston, 
leaving  her  child  here.  If  she  applies  you  will  give  the  necessary 
orders  to  the  guards. 

This  morning  a  detachment  of  riflemen  surprised  the  enemy's 
guard  q  'rt  'd.  in  Charlestown  Neck  and  brought  off  two  prisoners, 
but  they  gave  no  particular  information  but  what  we  had  before. 
It  is  supposed  that  two  of  their  men  were  killed ;  not  one  on  our 
side  was  either  killed  or  wounded. 

I  am  sir  with  much  esteem, 
Your  most  ob'd't  and  very 
H'ble  servant, 
Jos.  Eeed    (Washington's  secretary). 
Headquarters,  Sunday,  9  o  'clock. 

The  British  army,  alarmed  by  the  riflemen's  surprise, 
fear  the  main  engagement  may  be  precipitated  any  moment. 
Washington  fears  the  same,  and  therefore  watches  every 
move  and  detects  the  slightest  action,  as  is  shown  by  this 


iFrom  original  manuscript  at  homestead.  Many  of  Washington's 
dictated  letters  and  dispatches,  while  still  his  dictations,  were 
signed  by  his  aides  or  secretary. 


ARTEMASWARD  33 

request   Washington  dictated    in    this  hitherto   unprinted 
letter : 

Headquarters,  Cambridge,  30  July,  1775. 

His  Excellency  here  desires  me  to  inform  you  that  it  is  his 
opinion  the  movemonts  of  the  regulars  on  your  side  may  have  been 
occasioned  by  the  alarm  we  gave  them  last  night.  He  requests  you 
to  be  prepared  for  them  in  case  they  attempt  anything  against 
your  posts,  and  if  any  new  movements  are  made  to  give  him 
immediate  notice  of  them. 

"We  have  had  before  ns  General  Ward's  unpublished  or- 
derly book^  in  which  he  wrote  each  day's  events  and  orders 
at  Dorchester.  It  details  the  Ions:  stand  of  the  ri^ht 
wing  up  to  March.  In  its  pages  we  follow  the  patriots 
as  they  are  bracing  themselves  for  the  impending  struggle, 
and  strengthen  outposts  on  even  to  Squantum.  As  the 
winter  drew  on,  as  some  soldier  on  the  Neck  or  on  the  other 
side  from  over  the  Charles  kicked  the  blazing  log  of  a  fire 
in  the  American  camp,  the  British  army  confined  there 
heard  him  sing  camp-songs  like  this: 

"And  what  have  you  got  by  all  your  designing 
But  a  town  without  dinner  to  sit  down  and  dine  in?" 

Ward's  plan  of  starving  and  freezing  out  the  garrison 
was  working.  For  to  provide  fuel  for  the  shivering  troops 
of  the  British,  numbers  of  whom  were  up  to  December  still 
in  tents,  through  his  glasses  from  Dorchester,  General 
Ward  watched  meeting-houses  being  torn  down  in 
Boston. 


lln  the  Antiquarian  Society,  Worcester,  where  the  writing  stands 
out  as  boldly  as  on  the  day  he  wrote  it  in  his  year  as  Commander 
of  the  right  wing. 


34  MASTER    MINDS 

Washington,  too,  was  on  the  watch.  English  ships  com- 
ing to  succor  the  royalists  he  had  smartly  seized,  and  their 
coasting  vessels  prevented  from  bringing  in  provisions  and 
provender.  Chief  among  the  prizes  taken  by  the  patriots 
was  the  brigantine  Nancy,  loaded  with  beef  and  with  two 
thousand  stands  of  arms  and  seven  thousand  of  round  shot 
for  cannon,  two  thousand  muskets,  one  hundred  five  thou- 
sand flints,  sixty  reams  of  cartridge  paper,  three  thousand 
round  shot  for  twlve -pounders  and  four  thousand  shot  for 
six-pounders. 

Grave  matters  of  internal  administration  still  arose,  how- 
ever, to  engage  the  new  Commander-in-chief.  From  the 
contents  of  many  letters,  nowhere  do  we  see  "Washington 
demonstrate  more  wise  and  delicate  capacity  to  command 
than  in  thus  holding  the  restless  army  together  by  conciliat- 
ing New  England  generals  to  the  reorganization.  Manu- 
script letters  far  back  in  1775  expose  how  often  he  yielded 
minor  differences  wherever  he  could  to  secure  the  major 
harmony. 

So  close  even  since  September  have  grown  the  sentries  of 
the  opposing  armies,  and  so  short  the  space  between,  that 
deserters  walk  undetected  from  one  to  the  other.  Counter- 
signs are  betrayed  and  the  enemy  is  given  the  password  by 
which  they  may  enter  the  American  lines.  At  such  times 
from  wing  to  wing  the  besieging  army  quivers  with  excite- 
ment as  post-riders  dash  in  to  Washington  with  dispatches 
like  this  one  to  Washington  from  Greene,  which  we  have 
reopened  in  the  original  manuscript  from  General  Ward's 
house: 


o 


ART  EM  AS    WARD  35 

Prospect  Hill,  Sept.  10,  1775.1 
8  o'clock. 
Til  is    TiKunout    reported    me    from    the    White-house    Guard 
^     that  a  deserter   had  made  his  escape  into  Bunker  Hill.     Two 
^     sentries  fired  at  him  but  he  made  his  escape  I  believe  unhurt. 
H      ...     If  this   deserter  has  carried  in   the  countersign,  they 
may  easily  carry   it   over  to  Roxbury.     It  would  be   a  pretty 
^   y,     advantage  for  a  partisan  frolic. 

9  ^  The  Rifflers  seem  very  sulky  and  .  .  threaten  to  rescue 
H  w  their  mates  tonight,  but  little  is  feared  from  them,  as  the 
o  g  regiment  are  already  at  a  moment's  notice  to  turn  out — and 
1^  ^     the  guards  very  strong. 

On  again  Avith  the  dispatch,  under  cover  of  darkness, 
spurred  the  post-rider  whom  Washington,  by  his  staff 
officer,  after  the  reception  of  the  eight  o'clock  message, 
hastened  over  to  Ward  at  Roxbury  with  General  Greene's 
dispatch    and  the  new  parole  and  countersign,  adding: 

Headquarters  9  at  night,i 
10  September,  1775. 

The  parole  and  countersign  has  been  changed  on  this  side  as 
you  see  them  inscribed  in  General  Greene's  letter.  You  will  no 
doubt  order  it  to  be  complied  with. 

Your  most  obedient  humble  servant, 

Horatio  Gates  (Adj.  Gen.). 

How  long  the  British  can  stand  the  pressure  of  the  siege 
becomes  to  both  sides  an  a.nxious  question.  It  is  evident 
that  it  cannot  be  long,  and  this  means — action ! 

Beset  everywhere  by  petty  sjnuptoms  of  disorganiza- 
tion and  disorder,  Washington  not  only  finds  no  chance  to 
strike  the  enemy,  but  grows  desperate  in  his  determination 
to  prevent  his  own  army's  leaking  away  between  his 
fingers  while  apparently  yet  in  his  hand. 


iFrom  the  original  manuscript  at  homestead. 


36  MASTER    MINDS 

By  November  28th,  of  the  required  twenty-two  thousand 
men  but  three  thousand  five  hundred  had  re-enlisted  for  the 
new  establishment.  Even  on  into  December,  not  only  was 
the  recruiting  of  men  for  the  new  year  delayed,  but  officers 
were  unfixed,  with  less  than  thirty  days  before  the  expira- 
tion of  all.  The  whole  future  of  the  Revolution  was 
indeed  at  stake. 


GENERAL   WARD,    VICTOR   OF    THE   EVACUATION   OF  BOSTON 

During  the  past  months,  lest  the  enemy  make  the  first 
move,  Washington  had  been  all  along  for  weeks  most  alert, 
and  constant  warnings  fiy  between  him  and  Ward.  A 
warning  to  Ward  December  4th,  1775,  by  his  Adjutant- 
general,  Washington  punctuates  ■with  these  words: 

This  moment  a  report  is  come  from  the  commanding  oflScer  at 
Chelsea  that  the  enemy  have  passed  from  Boston  to  Charlestown 
this  afternoon,  near  one  hundred  boats  full  of  men;  perhaps  this 
may  be  only  intended  as  a  feint  on  this  side,  when  the  serious 
attacks  may  be  on  yours;  it  behooves  to  be  alert  in  all  quarters. 
I  therefore  by  His  Excellency's  command  acquaint  yen  of  this 
manoeuvre  of  your  enemy,  not  doubting  but  you  will  take  your 
measures  accordingly. 

By  the  hard-pressed  enemy  in  Boston,  where  conditions 
were  growing  intolerable,  is  there  to  be  a  movement 
against  the  stores? 

Washington  will  send  troops  here  and  there  to  guard 
them,  as  we  see  by  his  dictated  word,  and  straightway 
in  view  of  the  climax,  which  sooner  or  later  circum- 
stances will  force  upon  them,  he  looks  towards  meet- 
ing the  crisis.  To  meet  this  crisis  General  Washington 
altogether  planned  three  separate  attacks  upon  Boston,  all 
of  which  failed  to  eventuate.     They  were  the  one  shown 


ARTEMAS    WARD  37 

in  the  following  letter  on  Castle  William,  the  one  across 
the  Charles  on  ice,  and  the  counter  attack  to  Lord  Percy's 
in  March.  As  to  the  first  he  most  interestingly  proceeds  to 
unfold  to  Ward  the  following  design : 

Cambridge,  Nov.  17th,  1775.1 

As  the  season  is  fast  upproachiug  when  the  Bay  between  us  and 
Boston  will,  in  all  probability,  be  close  shut  up,  thereby  rendering 
any  movement  upon  the  Ice  as  easy  as  if  no  water  was  there,  and 
as  it  is  more  than  possible  that  General  Howe,  when  he  gets  the 
expected  reinforcement  will  endeavor  to  relieve  himself  from  the 
disgraceful  confinement  in  which  the  Ministerial  troops  have  been 
all  this  Summer,  common  prudence  dictates  the  necessity  of  guard- 
ing our  camps  wherever  they  are  most  available  for  this  purpose, 
I  wish  you,  Sergt.  Thomas,  Genl.  Spencer  &  Col.  Putnam  to  meet 
me  at  your  Quarters  tomorrow  at  Ten  o'clock,  that  we  may  ex- 
amine your  work  at  the  neck  and  Sewells  point,  and  direct  such 
batteries  as  shall  appear  necessary  for  the  security  of  your  camp, 
on  that  side  to  be  thrown  up  without  loss  of  time. 

I  have  long  had  it  upon  my  mind  that  a  successful  attempt 
might  be  made,  by  way  of  surprise,  upon  Castle  William — from 
every  acct.  there  are  no  more  than  300  men  in  the  place.  The 
whale  boats  therefore  which  you  have,  such  as  could  be  sent  to 
you  would  easily  transport  800  or  1000  which  with  a  very  mod- 
erate share  of  conduct  and  spirit  might  I  should  think  bring  off 
the  Garrison,  if  not  some  part  of  the  Stores. — I  wish  you  to  discuss 
this  matter  (under  the  Kose)  with  officers  of  whose  judgment  and 
conduct  you  can  rely — something  of  this  sort  may  show  how  far 
the   men   are  to   be  depended   upon — 

I  am  with  respect 

Yr  most  obed  H  Ser 

G  Washington 

This  stands  out  as  the  first  one  of  the  three  ways  Wash- 
ington planned  to  take  Boston,  all  of  which  failed  to  suc- 
ceed. 


lOriginal  manuscript  at  Antiquarian  Society,  Worcester. 


38  MASTER    MINDS 

About  two  weeks  later  the  Continental  Congress  voted 
Washington  "could  attack  Boston  in  any  manner  he  may 
think  expedient."  Dropping  the  Castle  William  plan,  he 
elected  another  one — to  attack  by  crossing  the  frozen 
waters  of  the  Charles.  But  the  ice  did  not  freeze  until  the 
middle  of  February.  Calling  a  council,  Washington,  to 
his  great  disheartenment,  found  himself  out-voted  on  the 
grounds  of  the  too  great  risk  involved. 

February  the  13th  the  enemy  themselves  anticipated  him 
and  carried  out  his  strategy  by  crossing  over  the  ice  to  Dor- 
chester Neck  (now  South  Boston).  Here  they  leveled  all 
cover  in  the  shape  of  buildings,  also  capturing  six  patriot 
guards. 

The  British  objective  was  Dorchester  Heights.  But  they 
were  not  the  only  ones  having  designs  on  this  objective.  It 
was  also  tlie  objective  for  General  Artemas  Ward's  right 
wing. 

While  Washington  was  three  times  to  be  compelled  to 
give  up  his  plans  of  attack  upon  Boston,  the  chance  from 
Ward's  side  is  all  the  time  opening.  The  plan  went 
before  the  council  of  war.  It  was  voted  by  the  council, 
Washington  then  concurring.  From  the  very  first  Ward's 
move  towards  a  victorious  prepossession  of  Dorchester 
Heights,  towards  the  Dorchester  Heights  victory  and 
towards  the  British  evacuation,  moves  swiftly  to  a  climax. 

Everything  favored  the  Dorchester  Heights  plan.  The 
brigantine  Nancy's  contribution  of  ammunition  came  just 
in  time  to  supply  Knox's  heavy  cannon  so  brilliantly  trans- 
ported from  Ticonderoga  over  the  Green  Mountains  by 
forty-two  ox-team  sleds.  General  Ward  had  also  under 
him  most  able  subordinates.  General  Thomas,  Colonel  Put- 
nam and  Engineer  Gridley,  who  had  thrown  up  the  Bun- 
ker Hill  redoubts. 


ART  EM  AS    WARD  39 

But  details  are  over,  and  at  len^h  the  crisis  is  at  hand. 
It  may  come  at  any  moment.  The  American  fjenerals  are 
all  alert.  Any  juncture  may  precipitate  the  conflict. 
Though  himself  outvoted  as  to  his  plan  of  attack  and  now 
giving  the  new  undertaking  over  into  the  direct  command 
of  his  first  Major-general,  General  Ward,  Washington  right 
nobly  decided  that  as  to  prepossessing  Dorchester  Heights : 
"It  is  better  to  prevent  than  to  remedy  an  evil,"  and  backs 
Ward  with  every  force  at  his  command.  In  an  interest- 
ing letter  he  keeps  Ward  in  touch  with  the  enemy's 
designs,  and  Ward  in  turn  warns  General  Brewer  that  in 
view  of  an  immediate  attempt  upon  the  American  lines,  the 
troops  "lye  upon  their  arms"  and  the  picket  be  "so  dis- 
posed as  to  give  them  a  warm  reception." 

Washington  betrays  great  caution.  It  is  evident  that  it 
is  hard  for  him  to  share  Ward's  convictions  that  the  affair 
is  to  go  through  without  a  hitch  and  be  a  clean  sweep  for 
the  American  forces. 

It  is  yet  but  February  27th,  and  March  17th,  the  day  of 
the  British  evacuation  of  Boston,  is  three  weeks  distant. 
Washington  fears  an  attack  while  Ward  is  unprepared. 
But  his  fear  again  and  again  turns  out  unfounded,  as,  for 
instance,  he  here  himself  declares  to  General  Ward  from 
Cambridge,  February  27th,  1776^: 

We  were  falsely  alarmed  a  while  ago  with  an  account  of  the 
regulars  coming  over  from  the  Castle  William  to  Dorchester.  Mr. 
Bayler  whom  I  immediately  sent  is  just  returned  with  a  contra- 
diction of  it.  But  as  a  rascally  Eifleman  went  it  last  night  & 
will  no  doubt  give  all  the  intelligence  he  can,  wd  it  not  be  prudent 
to  keep  Six  or  Eight  trusty  men  by  way  of  Lookouts  or  Patrols 


iThis  letter,  originally  found  at  the  residence,  is  also  in  Miss 
Ward's  "Old  Times  in  Shrewsbury,"  p.  168. 


40  MASTER    MINDS 

tonight  on  the  point  next  to  the  Castle  as  well  as  in  Nuke  Hill; 
at  the  same  time  ordering  particular  Eegiments  to  be  ready  to 
march  at  a  moment's  notice  to  the  Heights  of  Dorchester.  For 
should  the  enemy  get  Possession  of  those  hills  before  us,  they 
would  render  it  a  difficult  task  to  dispossess  them.  Better  it  is 
therefore  to  prevent  than  to  remedy  an  evil. 

To  draw  attention  from  the  right  wing's  operations  of 
Major-general  Ward,  Saturday  night,  March  2d,  the  left 
wing  north  of  Boston  began  cannonading,  and  continued 
cannonading  the  nights  of  Sunday  and  Monday,  March  3d 
and  4th.  So  great  was  the  din  and  so  skillful  were  the 
manoeuvres  that  Knox's  forty-two  ox  teams  hauled  the 
Ticonderoga  cannon  on  "screwed"  straw  over  the  frozen 
earth  of  Dorchester  Neck  within  a  mile  of  the  English  sen- 
tries without  discovery.  March  3d,  preceding  the  day 
(March  4th)  on  which  General  Thomas'  ox-teams  were  to 
cany  up  the  cannon,  came  this  letter  from  Washington  to 
Ward;! 

To  Major  General  Ward, 

Commanding  at  Eoxbury, 

Cambridge  3  March  1776 

Sir:  My  letter  of  last  Night  would  inform  you  that  the  Gen'l 
officers  at  this  place  thought  it  dangerous  to  delay  taking  post 
on  Dorchester  Hills,  least  they  should  be  possessed  before  us  by 
the  Enemy,  and  therefore  Involve  us  in  difficulties  which  we  should 
not  know  how  to  extricate  ourselves  from — This  opinion  they  were 
inclined  to  adopt  from  a  belief,  indeed  almost  a  certain  knowledge, 
of  the  Enemy's  being  apprised  of  our  designs  that  way. 

You  should  make  choice  of  some  good  Eegiments  to  go  on  the 
morning  after  the  Post  is  taken,  under  the  command  of  General 
Thomas — the  number  of  men  you  shall  judge  necessary  for  this 
Eelief  may  be  ordered.  I  should  think  from  two  to  three  thousand, 
as  circumstances  may  require,  would  be  enough.     I  shall  send  you 


lit   is   the   most    highly    graphic    of   several   Dorchester   Heights 
letters,  and  is  now  in  the  Ward  homestead. 


ARTEMA8    WARD  41 

from  thenco  two  Regiments  to  be  at  Roxbury  early  on  Tuesday 
morning  to  strengthen  your  lines  and  I  shall  send  you  from  hence 
tomorrow  evening  two  Companies  of  Riflemen,  which  with  the  three 
now  there  may  bo  part  of  the  Relief  to  go  on  with  Gen'l  Thomas — 
these  Five  companies  may  be  placed  under  the  care  of  Captain  Hugh 
Stephenson  subject  to  the  Conunaud  of  the  officer  Commanding  at  the 
Post  (Dorchester), 

— They  will  I  think  be  able  to  gald  the  Enemy  sorely  in  the  march 
from  the  boats  in  landing.  A  Blind  along  the  Causey  should  be 
thrown  up,  if  possible  while  the  other  work  is  about;  especially  on 
the  Dorchester  side,  as  that  is  nearest  the  Enemy's  Guns  and  most 
exposed.  We  calculate  1  think  that  800  men  would  do  the  whole 
Causey  with  great  ease  in  a  night  if  the  marsh  is  not  got  bad  to 
work  again  and  the  tide  gives  no  great  Interruption. — 

250  able  men  I  should  think  would  soon  fell  the  Trees  for  the 
Abettes  but  what  number  it  may  take  to  get  them,  the  Fascines, 
Chandeliers  etc.  in  place  I  know  not — 750  men  (the  working  party 
carrying  their  arms)  will  I  should  think  be  sufficient  for  a  Cov- 
ering party,  these  to  be  posted  on  Nuke  Hill — or  the  little  hill  in 
front  of  the  2nd  hill  looking  into  Boston  Bay — and  near  the  point 
opposite  the  Castle — sentries  to  be  kept  between  the  Parties  and 
some  on  the  back  side  looking  towards  Squantum. 

As  I  have  a  very  high  opinion  of  the  defense  which  may  be  made 
with  barrels  from  either  of  the  hills,  I  could  wish  you  to  have  a 
number  over.  Perhaps  single  barrels  would  be  better  than  linking  of 
them  together,  being  less  liable  to  accidents.  The  Hoops  should 
be  well  nailed  on  else  they  will  soon  fly  and  the  casks  fall  to  pieces. 

You  must  take  care  that  the  necessary  notice  is  given  to  the 
Militia  agreeable  to  the  plan  settled  with  General  Thomas.  I  shall 
desire  Col'n  Gridley  and  Col'n  Knox  to  be  over  tomorrow  to  lay  out 
the  work.  I  recollect  nothing  more  at  present  to  mention  to  you — you 
will  settle  matters  with  the  officers  with  you,  as  what  I  have  here 
said  is  intended  rather  to  convey  my  ideas  generally  than  wishing 
them  to  be  adhered  to  strictly. 

I  am  with  esteem  etc.  Sir 

Yr  most  Obed.  Servt 

Go  Washington. 

Monday,  March  4th,  soon  after  General  Thomas  had 
started  from  General  Ward's  camp  with  twelve  hundred 


42  MASTER    MINDS 

men,  he  took  position  on  the  higher  elevations  of  Dorches- 
ter Heights,  where  he  was  reinforced.  Under  General 
Ward,  the  immediate  head  in  command  of  the  undertaldng 
entrusted  to  him,  all  worked  in  perfect  harmony.  Gridley, 
who  entrenched  the  Heights  and  laid  out  the  works,  was 
assisted  by  Colonel  Putnam.  Inspired  by  their  townsmen's 
generalship,  it  was  said  that  none  of  the  sappers  and  miners 
worked  with  more  unflagging  toil  to  entrench  the  Heights 
than  General  Ward's  own  Shrewsbury  neighbors.  One  of 
these,  Nathan  Howe,  died  of  the  chill  he  conti'acted  this 
night. 

So  remarkable  was  the  extent  of  their  night's  work  that 
General  Howe  of  the  enemy's  force  wrote  to  his  cabinet 
minister  in  England  that  it  must  have  been  the  work  of 
twelve  thousand  men. 

It  was  the  first  sight  of  the  works  frowning  down  upon 
the  shipping  that  evoked  from  the  British  officer  in  com- 
mand the  exclamation:  "The  rebels  have  done  more  in  a 
night  than  my  whole  army  could  have  done  in  a  month ! ' ' 

To  destroy  these  suddenly  thrown-up  works  which  could 
themselves  destroy  the  harbor  ships,  their  only  means  of 
escape,  Lord  Percy  with  three  thousand  British  proceeded 
to  Castle  William,  the  little  island  just  off  the  main  land 
(now  Castle  Island,  South  Boston).  Here  he  planned 
attack  on  the  east  and  south,  but  a  driving  storm  prevented 
this  action. 

While  Lord  Percy  was  thus  for  attacking  Ward's  army 
at  Dorchester  Heights  on  the  east  and  south,  Washington 
planned  his  third  unsuccessful  stroke  upon  Tuesday,  the 
5th  of  March.  It  was  by  a  counter-attack  to  strike  Boston 
by  the  west  on  the  river  side.^ 


iWhere  now  lies  the  Massacliusetts  General  Hospital    Parkway. 


ARTE  MAS    WARD  43 

But  Percy's  failure  to  make  the  English  attack  on  the 
other  side  blocked  Washington's  move,  for  which  he  had  in 
readiness  the  troops  of  Putnam,  Greene  and  Sullivan. 

Thus  the  field  was  left  clear  to  Artemas  Ward,  and  we 
cannot  but  admire  tho  magnificent  way  in  which  Washing- 
ton, liis  other  plans  miscarrying,  now  leaves  the  master- 
piece of  the  Dorchester  Heights  undertaking  to  Major- 
general  Ward,  and  yet  backs  him  with  every  resource  of 
his  matchless  generalship.  He  is  in  constant  solicitude  for 
the  undertaking,  of  whose  success  he  is  not  wholly  con- 
vinced. He  therefore  writes  from  headquarters  to  General 
Ward: 

By  the  deserter  from  the  63  Eegiment  who  came  last  night 
from  the  Enemy  the  General  is  informed  that  they  have  it  in  con- 
templation to  erect  a  battery  of  Cannon  somewhere  between  Brown's 
House  and  the  George  Tavern,  having  cut  down  Liberty  Tree  for  the 
purpose  of  making  fascines,  etc.  Though  the  tales  of  deserters  are 
not  always  true,  yet  some  attention  may  not  be  thrown  away  upon 
the  present  occasion.  The  General  thinks  a  strong  Picquet  at  all 
hours  of  the  night  should  be  in  readiness  to  defeat  the  design  of  the 
Enemy.  A  proper  patrol  may  also,  during  the  night,  keep  con- 
stantly watching  the  motions  of  the  enemy  and  instantly  alarming 
the  picquet  upon  any  advance  upon  that  side  who  will  thereupon 
march  and  drive  the  enemy  from  the  intended  works.  The  deserter 
says,  he  informed  the  gentlemen  who  examined  him  this  morning  at 
Roxbury  of  the  intentions  of  the  Enemy .1 

March  8th  Howe  sent  within  the  American  lines  by  flag 
an  offer  of  truce,  stating  the  English  desire  to  evacuate 
Boston  with  the  army.  The  Selectmen  of  Boston  sent  by 
the  same  flag  a  petition  begging  that  ' '  so  dreadful  a  calam- 
ity as  the  destruction  of  Boston ' '  might  not  be  brought  on 
from  without. 


iFrom  a  manuscript  at  Ward  homestead. 


44  MASTER    MINDS 

Accompanied  by  an  expression  of  the  Commander-in- 
chief's  prevailing  fear  of  a  trap  and  the  overturning  of 
Ward's  plan,  came  as  a  result  Washington's  peremptory 
orders  to  General  Ward  March  10,  which  we  reopen  from 
the  original  as  they  came  from  Cambridge  March  10th,  1776 : 

By  his  Excellency's  command  I  am  to  inform  you  that  it  is  his 
desire  that  you  give  peremptory  orders  to  the  Artillery  officer 
commanding  at  Lams  Dam  that  he  must  not  fire  on  the  town  of  Bos- 
ton tonight  unless  they  first  begin  a  cannonade,  and  that  you  inform 
the  officer  at  Dorchester  Heights  that  he  is  not  to  fire  from  thence  on 
the  town.  If  they  begin  and  we  have  any  cannon  on  Nuke  Hill  his 
Excellency  would  have  the  fire  to  be  returned  from  thence  among 
the  shipping  and  every  damage  done  them  that  possibly  can — 

Notwithstanding  the  accounts  received  of  the  enemy's  being  about 
to  evacuate  Boston  with  all  seeming  hurry  and  expedition,  his  Ex- 
cellency is  apprehensive  that  Gen.  Howe  has  some  design  of  hav- 
ing a  brush  before  his  departure  and  is  only  waiting  in  hopes  of 
finding  us  off  our  guard.  He  therefore  desires  that  you  will  be  very 
vigilant  and  have  every  necessary  precaution  taken  to  prevent  a  sur- 
prise and  to  give  them  a  proper  reception  in  case  they  attempt  any- 
thing. 

It,  however,  was  farthest  from  Howe's  purpose  to  do 
anj^hing  but  get  aivay,  and  General  Ward's  victory  was 
completely  beyond  even  Washington's  expectations. 

At  General  Ward's  headquarters  on  March  13  a  council 
of  war  was  summoned,  at  which  were  Washington,  Put- 
nam, Sullivan,  Heath,  Greene  and  Gates.  Nook's  Hill  as 
a  nearer  point  from  which  to  harass  the  ships  and  towns 
was  here  determined  upon  as  a  point  to  be  fortified. 

Saturday,  the  16th  of  March,  Howe  blew  up  his  own  army 
effects  which  the  over-crowded  transport  bound  for  Hali- 
fax compelled  him  to  leave  behind.  Sunday  morning,  the 
17th,  he  then  embarked  in  seventy-eight  transports  the 
besieged  army  of  eight  thousand  nine  hundred  and  six 
officers  and  men  and  eleven  hundred  tory  residents. 


General   Aiitemas  Ward 
First  Commander-in-chief  of  the  American  Revolution 
(From  a  portrait  of  1777) 


ARTEMA8    WARD  45 

The  17th  of  March  is  therefore  the  feast-day  in  the 
rubrics  of  the  Eevolution  in  New  England.  It  marks  the 
driving  of  the  British  from  New  England.  On  this  red- 
letter  day  the  same  deathless  purpose  that  unnerved  King 
George's  troops  at  Bvnher  TJill  expdled  the  iron  heel  of  the 
King  from  Neiv  England  soil  once  and  forever. 

It  is  to  the  glory  of  New  England,  and  it  is  the  everlast- 
ing retriever  of  Bunker  Hill,  that  the  Dorchester  Heights 
victory  that  cleared  New  England  of  the  aggressor  fell  not 
only  to  Washington,  grand  as  he  was,  hut  more  immediate- 
ly to  the  New  England  General,  the  first  Commander-in- 
chief  of  the  Eevolution  as  it  came  to  a  head  in  Massachu- 
setts— General  Artemas  Ward. 

From  the  time  of  its  first  conception  to  the  time  of  its 
final  victory,  the  British  evacuation  was  Ward's  master- 
piece. As  the  commanding  officer  at  the  head  of  the  specific 
undertaking,  it  was  Ward,  not  Washington,  who  literally 
sent  the  enemy  to  Halifax.  General  Ward,  as  soon  as  the 
enemy  evacuated  on  March  17th,  had  the  gates  unlocked 
and  entered  with  five  hundred  troops,  with  Ensign  Rich- 
ards hearing  the  standard.^ 


lOn  the  20th  the  main  body  of  the  army  entered. 

The  siege  ended  Monday.  Ward  marched  in  notwithstanding  the 
fact  that  the  Boston  Selectmen  had  warned  him  of  the 
pest  of  small-pox,  to  which  scourge  he  was  to  sacrifice  his  eon 
Nahum.  Washington  as  the  Commander-in-chief  came  over  after- 
wards from  Cambridge  and  entered  with  ceremony. 

A  medal  was  struck  for  Washington,  without  whose  reorgan- 
ization of  the  army  in  one  sense  the  victory  could  not  have  been 
achieved.  But  in  another  sense  neither  his  immediate  plan  nor  faith 
nor  action  was  directly,  in  the  main,  responsible  for  the  brilliant  vic- 
tory. For  Thomas  the  heights  of  Dorchester  were  named,  but  for 
Ward  the  appreciation  of  America  is  yet  to  be  shown. 


46  MASTER    MINDS 

GENERAL  WARD   AT   BOSTON 

Partly  from  a  belief  in  Ward's  incapacitation  through 
an  intestinal  malady,  partly  from  a  personal  misunder- 
standing of  him  as  his  Major-general,  and  partly  from  the 
feeling  that  Ward  could  best  of  all  serve  the  cause  in  New 
England's  capital,  Boston,  Washington  left  General  Ward 
over  the  evacuated  town,  and  took  with  him  as  his  staff  all 
the  other  generals  to  the  New  York  campaign. 

There  is  no  doubt  that  amongst  these  reasons,  belief  in 
Ward's  incurable  sickness  was  in  some  ways  a  major  one 
and  cannot  be  charged  to  Washington  or  laid  at  any  other 
door.  In  April  (1776)  General  Ward  himself  represented 
to  Congress  his  enfeebled  state  of  health  and  unwillingness 
to  continue  in  office  while  prevented  by  ill  health  from  ren- 
dering "an  equivalent  in  service."  He  therefore  requested 
Congress  to  accept  his  resignation  as  First  Major-general 
of  the  Continental  Army. 

But  there  is  not  much  doubt,  however,  that  General 
Ward,  who  served  the  State  in  twenty  more  intensely 
active  years,  would  have  risked  his  state  of  health,  whose 
disorder  he  had  all  along,  were  it  not  for  the  lamentable 
misunderstanding  which  undeniably  existed  between  him 
and  Washington. 

Washington 's  estimate  of  Ward  was  no  doubt  discolored 
by  mischief-maJiers,  chief  among  whom  was  General  Lee^ 


lA  confidential  letter  of  Washington  to  Lee  shows  Lee's  per- 
nicious influence,  which  existed  in  the  early  part  of  the  Eevolution 
until  Washington  found  Lee  out.  In  this  letter,  existing  among 
Colonel  Joseph  Ward's  literary  remains,  Washington  is  sharing 
Lee's  misconception  of  Ward  as  "a  chimney-side  hero." 

"It  is  well  known  that  Washington  spoke  of  the  resignation  of 
General  Ward,  after  the  evacuation  of  Boston,  in  a  manner  approach- 
ing   contempt.      His    observations,    then    confidentially    made,    about 


ABTFjMA.S     WART)  47 

of  the  left  win£7,  ever  a  malcontent  and  troiihle-hreeder, 
and  a  man  so  un- Americanly  ambitious,  that  to  throw  down 
whatsoever  character  stood  between  him  and  his  own 
superiority  was  a  common  failinnf.  They  discolored  the 
glasses  through  which  Washinprton  looked  at  Ward. 

It  was  no  doubt  with  a  keen  sense  of  this  misunderstand- 
ing and  its  results  that  "Ward  later  wrote,  June  14th,  1790 : 
"This  world  is  full  of  disappointments,  and  sometimes  I 
am  ready  to  say  that  no  one  hath  more  of  them  than  I." 

Yet  no  matter  what  the  single  or  combined  reasons,  no 
matter  how  he  felt,  no  matter  how  great  the  misunder- 
standing, it  was  Ward's  fate  to  be  shelved  and  pocketed  to 
police  a  pest-ridden  and  deserted  city,  while  the  other  gen- 
erals superseded  him  and  carried  on  the  Revolution.  The 
fortifying  of  the  harbor  against  the  possible  return  of  the 
enemy  he  had  driven  out  was  the  only  reward,  the  only 
soldierly  task  left  him. 

ARTEMAS  WARD,  THE  HERO  OP  SHAYS '  REBELLION 

Yet  Ward  did  not  sulk  in  his  tent  or  retire  as  invalided. 
The  period  of  reconstruction  following  the  Revolution's 
loss  of  blood  and  wealth,  the  modem  mind  ill  conceives. 


some  of  the  other  generals,  were  not  calculated  to  flatter  their  amour 
propre  or  that  of  their  descendants.  It  is  said  that  General  Ward, 
learning  long  afterwards  the  remark  that  had  been  applied  to  him, 
accompanied  by  a  friend,  waited  on  his  old  chief  at  New  York,  and 
asked  him  if  it  was  true  that  he  had  used  such  language.  The  Presi- 
dent replied  that  he  did  not  know,  but  that  he  kept  copies  of  all  his 
letters,  and  would  take  an  early  opportunity  of  examining  them.  Ac- 
cordingly, at  the  next  session  of  Congress  (of  which  General  Ward 
was  a  member)  he  again  called  with  his  friend,  and  was  informed  by 
the  President  that  he  had  really  written  as  alleged.  Ward  then  said, 
'Sir,  you  are  no  gentleman,'  and  turning  on  his  heel  quitted  the 
room." — Dralce:  "Historic  Fields  and  Mansions  of  Middlesex,  page 


48  MASTER    MINDS 

In  the  swept-clean  nation,  devils  of  fratricidal  conflict 
worse  than  the  first  seemed  about  to  tear  young  America 
to  pieces. 

Were  the  arms  that  had  but  lately  given  the  Republic 
birth  now  to  turn  upon  it  and  rend  it  ? 

This  was  a  crisis  immediate  and  fearful. 

The  trouble  was  crucial,  severe  and  threatening. 

Bankrupt  even  to  the  melting  of  their  pewter  which  was 
gone ;  destitute  to  the  clothes  off  their  backs  which  they  had 
given;  in  debt  and  everything  mortgaged;  lands  foraged 
and  overrun ;  farms  neglected ;  church  habits  broken ;  hus- 
bands and  sons  killed  or  incapacitated;  standards  and 
morals  frequently  demoralized, — ^in  fine,  parts  of  the  coun- 
try upon  which  the  Revolutionary  centres  drew  ready  to 
lose  themselves  in  a  reaction  of  debt,  disorder  and  discour- 
agement, strong  hands  were  needed  to  save  the  State. 

Letters  and  messages  lie  in  "Ward's  trunk  rehearsing 
"crimes  which  reached  the  very  existence  of  social  order 
which  were  perpetrated  wdthout  content." 

Washington's  messages  are  filled  with  the  situation.  In 
Pennsylvania  he  has  to  recall  the  army.  In  August,  1786, 
Washington  most  seriously  took  notice  of  this  state  of  rebel- 
lion and  declared:  ''A  letter  received  from  General  Knox 
— just  returned  from  Massachusetts — is  replete  with  mel- 
ancholy accounts  of  the  important  designs  of  a  consider- 
able part  of  that  people.  Among  other  things  he  says: 
'Their  creed  is  that  the  property  of  the  United  States  had 
been  protected  by  the  exertion  of  all,  and  therefore  ought  to 
he  the  common  property  of  all;  and  he  that  attempts  oppo- 
sition to  this  creed  is  an  enemy  to  equity  and  justice  and 
ought  to  be  swept  from  off  the  face  of  the  earth. '  ' '  Again 
"they  are  determined  to  annihilate  all  debts,  and  have 
agrarian  laws  by  means  of  unbonded  paper  money.     The 


ARTEMA8    WARD  49 

number  of  these  people  in  Massachusetts  amounts  to  one- 
fifth  part  of  several  populous  counties,  and  to  them  may  be 
collected  people  of  similar  sentiments  from  the  states  of 
Rhode  Island,  Connecticut  and  New  PTampshire,  so  as  to 
constitute  a  body  of  about  twelve  or  fifteen  thousand  des- 
perate and  unprincipled  men.  They  are  chiefly  of  the 
young  and  active  part  of  the  community. 

"How  melancholy  is  the  reflection,"  concludes  Washing- 
ton, "that  in  so  short  space  we  should  have  made  such 
long  strides  towards  fulfilling  the  prediction  of  our  trans- 
atlantic foes :  '  Leave  them  to  themselves  and  their  govern- 
ment will  soon  dissolve. '  Will  not  the  wise  and  good  strive 
hard  to  avert  this  evil  ? ' ' 

Febmarv'  3d,  1787,  Washington  added:  "If  three  years 
since,  any  person  had  told  me  that  there  would  have  been  a 
formidable  rebellion  as  exists  to-day  against  the  laws  and 
constitution  of  our  making,  I  should  have  thought  him  a 
bedlamite  or  a  fit  subject  for  a  mad-house." 

In  Massachusetts,  which  had  breasted  the  Revolutionary 
conflicts  and  had  become  a  field  of  battle,  the  dead  were 
many  and  the  sick  legion.  "The  pitiable  condition  of  the 
injured  and  unfortunate  inhabitants  of  Massachusetts," 
was  a  phrase  used  in  letters  to  Ward  to  describe  the 
people's  suffering.  To  cap  the  climax,  it  was  a  population 
who  had  given  their  all  in  blood  and  money  to  supply  the 
sinews  of  war  which  had  not  been  wrenched  from  them  but 
offered  gladly  upon  their  country's  altar,  that  was  to  meet 
the  debtor's  fate  and  the  mortgagee's  hammer.  Executions 
for  debt  were  being  everywhere  served.^  Inability  to  meet 
the  demands  of  creditors  cruelly  stung  the  New   England 


iln  1784  more  than  2000  actions  were   entered  in  the  county  of 
Worcester. 


50  MASTER    MINDS  ' 

pride.  All  this  was  intensified  by  prophets  of  evil,  agitators 
and  alarmists. 

Repudiation  of  debt  and  stay  of  execution — this  became 
the  natural  and  popular  outcry  in  Massachusetts  as  well  as  at 
other  centres  of  disturbance.  The  people  started  to  take  the 
law  into  their  own  hands  and  initiate  a  reign  of  lawlessness. 

In  New  England  it  took  the  form  of  Shays'  Rebellion. 
The  centre  of  Shays'  Rebellion  was  Worcester,  the  Heart 
of  the  Conmionwealth,  and.  strange  to  say  by  the  very 
home  of  Ward — the  first  hero  of  its  defeat. 

The  best  of  Ward's  old  captains  in  the  Revolution 
headed  the  militia,  whose  ranks  were  hot-beds  of  the 
trouble.  Captain  Aaron  Smith,  for  instance,  lived  opposite 
Ward's  house,^  not  a  stone's- throw  away. 

Captain  Wheeler,  another  townsman,  rebelled,  to  say 
nothing  of  the  rank  and  file  who  enlisted  everywhere  under 
Ward's  old  comrades.  Captain  Daniel  Shays,  the  ring- 
leader himself,  was  also  one  of  Ward's  captains. 

To  let  the  rebellion  swell  from  such  a  start  till  it  over- 
flowed and  became  one  with  the  other  ferment  in  other  col- 
onies would  be  civil  war  and  the  nation's  death.  Now  came 
a  beautiful  proof  of  Ward's  unflinching  love  of  country 
after  his  being  superseded  in  Washington's  staff  by  such 
as  Lee  and  Gates.  He  might,  through  sympathy  with  his 
own  New  England,  his  soldiers  and  their  homes  and 
through  jealousy  of  Washington,  have  let  the  evil  go  on. 

But  no!  To  do-v^Ti  Shays'  hand  and  break  the  rebellion 
became  the  work  of  his  mind  and  tongue. 

Artemas  Ward  was  at  this  time  Chief-justice  of  the 
Court  of  Common  Pleas.    The  first  Tuesday  in  September, 


i"The    house    built    by    Ward's    father,    whence    Ward's    family 
moved  across  the  street  to  the  present  old  homestead." 


ARTE  MAS    WART)  51 

1786,  as  Chief-justice  with  his  associates,  he  was  ordered 
by  the  Great  and  General  Court  of  the  Commonwealth  to 
convene  the  court  at  Worcester. 

Should  it  meet  and  its  execution  and  judcrments  be 
decreed  law,  execution  against  debtors  could  be  enforced. 
Hence  it  was  the  psychological  moment  for  Shays  to  strike. 
Successful,  it  would  appeal  to  other  centres  of  people,  and 
set  the  country  aflame  and  complete  the  prediction  that  the 
gfovernment  would  soon  dissolve,  towards  which  dissolution 
Washington  confessed  the  country  was  g'oing  by  lonjs^ 
strides. 

Under  Captain  Wheeler,  Ward  saw  one  of  Shays' 
wheels  of  rebellion  pass  out  of  Shrewsbury.  There  were 
many  others  under  as  many  captains.  They  came 
into  Worcester  County  IMonday  afternoon,  September  4th, 
the  day  previous  to  the  court's  session,  and  barracked  in  the 
Court  House  halls. 

Aaron  Smith,  Ward's  next-door  neigfhbor  and  friend, 
marched  his  Shrewsbury  company  up  Monday  morning 
and  posted  them  on  Court  Hill  and  around  the  Court 
House. 

Had  there  been  tlie  least  show  of  disloyalty  or  had  pri- 
vate jealousy  swallowed  his  patriot's  devotion,  it  would 
now  be  easy  for  Ward  to  sit  back  and  see  the 
troubles  pile  up  against  the  Government  and  Washington 
and  say  nothing.  But  he  was  not  that  type  of  man.  He 
preferred  to  bring  against  himself  unpopularity  at  home  by 
standing  against  the  people. 

The  populace,  in  sympathy  with  the  disaffection, 
crowded  the  open  and  slopes. 

A  challenge  rang  out,  and  a  clank  of  a  bayoneted  musket. 

It  was  a  sentinel  halting  Judge  Ward's  cortege  of  jurists 
at  the  foot  of  the  hill. 


52  MASTER    MINDS 

But  hardly  had  the  challenge  resounded  when  the  old 
Commander's  tones  rang  out  stern  and  clear  upon  the  Sep- 
tember air:  "Present  arms!" 

Almost  on  the  exact  spot,  not  far  from  the  place  where 
now  is  the  motto,  ' '  Obedience  to  Law  is  Liberty, ' '  the  sol- 
dier obeyed,  and  the  judge's  party  proceeded  up  the  Court 
House  Hill,  eyed  by  the  hostile  populace  and  troops. 

On  the  broad  steps  at  the  southern  entrance,  with  side- 
arms  drawn.  Ward's  old  friends,  neighbors  and  officers, 
Captain  Wheeler  and  Captain  Smith,  blocked  the  way, 
backed  by  five  soldiers,  whose  fixed  bayonets  were  leveled 
gleaming  in  the  sun.  At  this  point  the  crier  of  the  Court 
House  opened  the  doors,  exposing  a  body  of  soldiery  within 
ready  to  fire.  Ignoring  the  blockade,  and  attempting  to 
pass  the  five  soldiers,  the  jurists  were  met  with  bayonet 
points  which  even  pierced  their  coat-fronts. 

Saying  he  would  answer  their  complaints,  Chief  Justice 
Ward  was  told  to  reduce  his  remarks  to  writing.  Deter- 
minantly  refusing,  General  Ward  heard  the  drum  beat  and 
the  guard  commanded  to  charge. 

The  crisis  was  faced  by  their  old  Commander  as  with 
gleaming  eye  and  righteous  wrath  he  looked  his  soldiers 
full  in  the  face  and  spoke  to  this  effect : 

"I  do  not  value  your  bayonets;  you  might  plunge  them 
into  my  heart;  but  while  that  heart  beats  I  will  do  my 
duty;  when  opposed  to  it,  my  life  is  of  little  consequence; 
if  you  will  take  away  your  bayonets  and  give  me  some  posi- 
tion where  I  can  be  heard  by  my  fellow-citizens  and  not  by 
the  leaders  alone,  who  have  deceived  and  deluded  you,  I 
will  speak,  but  not  otherwise."^ 


iSee  pp.  118-120,  History  of  Worcester,  Mass.,  by  William  Lincoln. 


ART  EM  AS    WAR  J)  53 

The  five  soldiei's  in  the  hill-top,  like  the  sentries  at  its 
foot,  themselves  nuistered  by  the  master  mind  of  their  old 
Commander,  dropp(>d  their  iiuiskets. 

The  way  up  the  steps,  now  nn])locked,  the  jndf^e  ascended 
in  the  dignity  of  triumphant  hiw  and  for  two  hours  ad- 
dressed the  people,  where  most  appropriately  enshrining 
the  spirit  of  that  day  is  now  earven  in  stone  the  above- 
mentioned  motto  given  by  Senator  Iloar:^  ''Obedience  to 
Law  is  Liberty."  Repeated  demands  were  as  loyally  met 
by  Ward  and  other  patriots,  who  remained  unmoved  by 
threats  or  show  of  force,  and  declared  firmly  for  the  Con- 
stitution. The  rebels  were  stubborn,  however,  and  con- 
tinued assembling  till  the  moral  opposition,  in  which  Ward 
led,  began  to  turn  the  tide  of  public  opinion,  until  at  last, 
January  21st,  1787,  the  State  sent  an  army  of  forty-four 
hundred  men  against  them  under  General  Lincoln, 

That  Ward  acted  with  etfect  can  be  judged  by  the  going 
to  pieces  of  the  rebellion  and  later  the  resumption  of 
court. 

Resentfully,  the  cowed  leaders,  scattered  throughout  the 
towns  of  central  Massachusetts,  were  pursued  by  the  troops 
under  General  Lincoln  in  a  pursuit  which  is  traced  in  a 


iSenator  Hoar  himself,  the  Ward  family  advocate,  was  a  cham- 
pion of  General  Ward,  and  had  often  expressed  to  the  family  the 
conviction  that  General  Ward's  statue  should  occupy  the  space  in 
front  of  the  Court  House.  The  ignorant  assumption  as  to  Ward 
of  popular  history  writers,  he   frequently  took  pains  to  scorn. 

Compare  Howe  in  * '  Life  and  Letters  of  George  Bancroft, ' '  where 
Howe  points  out  even  Bancroft's  fault  as  one  that  obscured  all  lights 
but  Washington 's.  ' '  In  more  than  one  instance  Bancroft 's  with- 
holding of  credit  where  credit  was  due  sprang  rather  transparently 
from  a  desire  to  fix  upon  Washington 's  brow  every  laurel  it  could 
accommodate."  This  is  preeminently  true  of  Bancroft's  passing 
over  of  Ward  in  order  to  emblazon  Washington. 


54  MASTER    MINDS 

diary  written  by  General  Ward's  son.  Some  of  the 
rebels  even  gathered  around  Aaron  Smith's  homestead 
just  across  the  King's  highway  from  Ward's  own  home. 
Their  camp-fires  spat  their  sparks  and  snapped  their 
harmless  revenge  in  front  of  Ward's  very  door-stoop 
till,  stamped  out  by  the  Commonwealth's  troops,  that 
put  to  flight  the  last  of  Shays'  rebels,  who  flew  to  the 
four  winds,  they  had  nothing  left  but  to  imitate  the  dis- 
graceful flight  of  Shays  himself. 

"Convinced  of  the  errors  and  evil  consequence  of  being 
in  rebellion  and  opposition  to  the  good  laws  and  authority 
of  the  Commonwealth,  I  do  feel  truly  and  heartily  sorry 
for  my  misconduct.  Therefore,  permit  me,  kind  sir,  to  beg 
humbly  your  pardon  and  forgiveness  in  this  as  well  as  in 
other  matters. ' '  One  by  one,  in  the  spirit  of  this  represent- 
ative confession,  returned  Ward's  old  comrades  from  the 
rebellion,  some  going  so  far  as  to  have  their  epistles  of  con- 
trition read  before  the  Shrewsbury  Church,  in  the  presence 
of  the  old  Commander  whose  master  hand  had  dealt  the 
rebellion  its  first  death-blow. 

Thus  Ward  never  laid  down  public  service  to  his  coun- 
try. And  in  other  ways  he  covered  at  every  step  his  mili- 
tary retreat  with  honor.  In  1777  he  was  elected  to  the  Ex- 
ecutive Council  of  the  Commonwealth,  of  which  he  became 
President,  and  for  sixteen  years  he  was  active  in  the  Legis- 
lature, and  he  was  Speaker  of  the  Assembly  in  1785. 

In  1777  he  had  been  the  choice  of  the  people  for  the  Con- 
tinental Congress  at  Philadelphia.  In  1791  he  was  elected 
to  the  national  House  of  Representatives,  to  remain  until 
1795. 

The  reconstruction  period  and  the  diplomacy  of  the 
American  Revolution  could  be  interestingly  sketched,  had 
we  time,  from  letters  in  Ward's  effects,  disclosing  the  hand 


^1      K 


ABTEMA8    WARD  55 

of  Franklin,  Adams,  Hancock,  and  of  forei^  lungs  and 
courts. 

As  a  gentleman  and  a  scholar,  his  personal  standing  was 
so  great  at  Harvard  University,  where  he  graduated  in 
1748,  that  he  acted  as  overseer,  and,  being  again  and  again 
called  to  the  college,  served  at  President  Langdon's  right 
hand. 

No  matter  what  his  disappointments  and  military  eclipse, 
in  every  quarter  to  the  end,  Ward,  the  patriot  leader, 
never  once  failed  to  lay  down  his  service  to  the  new 
nation.  For  while  New  England  was  always  dear  to  him, 
she  was  chiefly  dear  to  him  as  the  mother  of  the  nation ; 
and  she  was  to  him,  above  all  others,  even  above  Washing- 
ton, the  mother  of  the  nation  because  the  mother  of  the 
Revolution  of  which  he  was  a  first-bom  son. 

In  1799  he  was  smitten  with  a  paralytic  stroke,  to  be 
repeated  in  March,  1800. 

' '  I  hope  to  see  you  in  that  world  where  the  weary  are  at 
rest  and  where  envy  and  malice  cannot  approach,"  were 
previously  spoken  words  which  conveyed  the  spirit  of  his 
going,  which  occurred  a  little  before  seven  in  the  evening 
of  the  28th  of  October,  1800,  as  the  family  circle  watched 
the  end  when  they  parted,  but  when  Ward  and  Washington 
met  where  "to  know  all  is  to  forgive  all." 

"  It  is  one  of  the  most  pathetic  bits  of  satire  in  American 
history,"  declared  William  Cullen  Bryant,^  "that  the  name 
of  the  first  commander  in  the  Continental  Army  should  be 
remembered  by  nine  people  in  ten  only  as  that  of  an 
imagined  humorist — half  philosopher  and  half  showman.^ 


iWith  Ms  coadjutors  in  "Scribner's  History  of  the  United  States." 
2Eef erring  to  ' '  Artemus  Ward, ' '  the  nom  de  plume  of  the  humorist 
of  that  name,  Charles  F.  Browne. 


56  MASTER    MINDS 

In  few  other  cases  has  the  camera  ohscura  of  history  more 
sadly  concealed  by  its  negative  a  heroic  national  figure.  But 
it  is  a  figure  that,  more  and  more,  exposure  to  new  light 
will  clearly  bring  out  and  prove  that,  as  author  and  finisher 
of  the  American  Revolution  in  New  England,  Artemas 
Ward  took  second  place  to  none. 

The  curtain  may  well  be  raised  on  the  stage  of  "Master 
Minds  at  the  Commonwealth 's  Heart, ' '  not  by  a  dry  history 
lecture,  but  by  this  Revolutionary  hero's  intensely  thrilling 
life  in  whom  the  Revolution  first  came  to  a  head  and  whose 
figure  best  focalizes  the  light  of  its  opening  chapter  in  New 
England. 

It  is  also  a  life,  very  blood  of  very  blood,  of  the 
hill-folk  of  central  Massachusetts,  from  whom  later  sprang 
the  other  master  minds,  and  therefore  fittingly  introduces 
the  group  of  geniuses  here  produced.  In  living  action  it 
shows  how  came  to  be  that  liberty  without  which  would 
have  been  impossible  such  a  marvelous  outburst  of  discov- 
ery and  inventive  genius  as  they  represent,  and  it  well 
points  out  the  birth  of  the  freedom  which  was  the  mother  of 
their  ingenuity  and  which  magnetized  their  souls  with  its 
currents. 


ELI  WHITNEY 

INVENTOR  OP  THE  COTTON-GIN 

WITH  the  name  of  Eli  Whitney,  Westboro  adds  a 
great  link  to  the  chain  of  central  Massachusetts 
towns  which  are  coupled  with  the  careers  of 
master  minds. 

On  the  hard-scrabble  of  a  comparatively  thrifty  New 
England  farm,  December  8,  1765,  a  baby  boy  came  to  add 
to  a  New  England  mother 's  burdens,  which  were  in  general, 
and  in  this  case  so  severe  that  it  sometimes  took  two  or  three 
mothers,^  as  one  passed  away  after  another,  to  rear  one 
man's  family.  Yet  had  she  but  lived  to  rear  this  mite  she 
called  Eli,  she  would  have  seen  her  life  triumphantly  vin- 
dicated, and  she  would  have  seen  of  the  travail  of  her  soul 
and  have  been  satisfied. 

In  the  independence  of  that  day,  when  necessity  was  the 
mother  of  invention,  Eli  Whitney's  father  did  his  own 
repairing.  To  do  this  generated  an  atmosphere  about  the 
place  in  which  ingenuity  was  taxed  to  the  limit. 

THE  LAD   IN  THE  LITTLE  LEAN-TO  WORKSHOP 

"Our  father,"  his  sister  has  recalled,  ''had  a  workshop, 
and  sometimes  made  wheels  of  different  kinds,  and  chairs. 


iSee  President   G.   Stanley  Hall's  illuminating   address,   "More 
Manly  Men  and  Womanly  Women." 


58 


MASTER    MINDS 


He  had  a  variety  of  tools,  and  a  lathe  for  turning  chair- 
posts.  This  gave  my  brother  an  opportunity  of  learning 
the  use  of  tools  when  very  young.  He  lost  no  time,  but  as 
soon  as  he  could  handle  tools  he  was  always  making  some- 
thing in  the  shop,  and  seemed  not  to  like  working  on  the 
farm.  One  time  after  the  death  of  our  mother,  when  our 
father  had  been  absent  from  home  two  or  three  days,  on  his 
return  he  inquired  of  the  housekeeper  what  the  boys  had 


Birthplace  of  Eli  Whitney. 
In  the  Tool-shed  at  the  Left  Began  his  Boyhood  Labors  at  Invention. 


been  doing.  She  told  him  what  B.  and  J.  had  been  about. 
'But  what  has  Eli  been  doing?'  asked  he.  She  replied  he 
had  been  making  a  fiddle.  'Ah,'  he  added,  despondingly, 
'I  fear  Eli  will  have  to  take  his  portion  with  fiddles.'  " 

Nevertheless,  so  well  made  was  the  instrument  that  the 
boy  understood  now  the  structure  of  all  violins,  and  was 
sought  throughout  the  countryside  by  every  one  who  had 
one  to  repair. 


ELI     WHITNEY  59 

On  another  occasion,  during:  church-time,  a  watch  of  his 
father's  Eli  secretly  took  to  pieces,  and  put  together  again 
before  his  father's  return. 

Thus  it  was  that  no  one  discovered  young  Whitney's 
genius  for  him.  As  generally  happens,  in  the  unexpected 
and  quite  accidental  in  such  instances  as  these,  he  found  it 
out  for  himself. 

If  around  the  house,  for  instance,  a  table-lmife  was 
broken,  he  made  one  in  its  place. 

Shortly  after  he  was  ten  years  old,  the  Revolutionary 
War  broke  out.  Among  other  conunodities  denied  the 
Americans  through  the  English  blockade,  nails,  he  noted, 
were  everywhere  lacking.  Young  as  he  was,  he  contrived 
the  idea  of  making  them  himself.  By  this  time  his  father 
had  been  won  over  to  believe  in  the  boy's  mechanical  abil- 
ity, and  went  out  of  his  way  not  only  to  allow  him  free  use 
of  his  tools,  but  to  get  for  him  new  ones. 

Whitney  was  only  sixteen  years  old  when  the  war  ended 
in  1781,  but  up  to  this  time,  for  three  years,  since  thirteen, 
the  lad  had  made  first  the  machinery  for  manufacturing 
nails,  then  the  nails  tliemselves.  The  demand  was  large, 
and  the  nails  were  used  everywhere. 

TOO    OLD   FOR   A    COLLEGE   EDUCATION? 

As  early  as  the  age  of  twelve,  the  boy,  enamored  of  an 
active  life,  had  point-blank  refused  his  father's  proposition 
that  he  go  to  preparatory  school  and  make  ready  for  college. 
But  in  the  play  of  his  ingenuity,  ever  seeking  knowledge 
and  advancement  out  of  the  rut  in  which  he  found  himself, 
six  years  after  the  thirteen-year-old  boy  had  invented  a 
way  to  make  nails,  he  made  a  way,  not  finding  one,  to  go  to 
Yale. 


60  MASTER    MINDS 

Thus  six  years  after  he  refused  his  father's  offer  of  a 
college  education,  he  changed  his  mind.  He  was 
eighteen,  and  the  hard  knocks  of  the  world  proved  to  him 
the  helpfulness  of  a  higher  education  to  enable  him  to  rise 
above  the  common  level. 

"Too  old,"  declared  his  father.  Added  to  this  was  his 
stepmother's  violent  opposition  to  spending  money  on  Eli 
at  this  age.  If  he  went  at  all  he  must  begin  all  over  again, 
start  with  elementary  preparatory  studies,  and  at  the  same 
time  earn  enough  to  pay  his  ' '  keep ' '  and  defray  his  future 
college  course  with  the  amount  he  could  save.  Yet  he 
decided  to  do  it  alone.  At  seven  dollars  a  month  and  his 
board  he  found  a  place  to  teach  in  three  towns  that 
belt  Worcester  on  three  sides:  Westboro,  Northboro  and 
Paxton.  Studying  alongside  all  the  while,  in  the  summer 
he  attended  the  neighboring  academies. 

To  teaching  school  he  added  such  humble  work  as  making 
and  selling  bonnet-pins  and  walking-sticks.  By  these 
means  he  succeeded  at  last  in  his  dream  of  a  liberal  educa- 
tion, and  arrived  at  New  Haven,  twenty-three  years  old,  in 
1789. 

Mathematics  naturally  being  the  choice  of  a  mind  as 
scientific  as  his,  with  his  native  originality  he  turned  from 
the  dead  languages  to  pursue  his  peculiar  bent,  and  was 
graduated  in  a  class  of  thirty-four  in  1792.  His  address  to 
his  classmates  recalls  that  he  took  life  earnestly  in  college, 
and  showed  an  educated  conscience. 

"We  have  nearly  completed  our  collegiate  life,"  he  con- 
cluded, ' '  our  whole  life  to  look  back ;  how  short  it  has  been ! 
We  soon  must  quit  these  favorite  walks  of  science  and 
retirement  and  go  forth  each  to  perform  his  destined  task 
on  the  busy  stage  of  life.  Let  us  ever  be  actuated  by  prin- 
ciples of  integrity,  and  always  maintain  a  consciousness  of 


ELI     WHITNEY  61 

doing  right.  This  will  beam  happiness  upon  our  minds, 
make  the  journey  of  life  agreeable,  avert  the  deadly  shaft 
of  calumny,  and  be  a  firm  support  in  death.  In  a  few  days 
more  we  shall  be  dispersed  in  various  parts  of  the  world." 

In  this  Whitney  proved  a  class  prophet,  with  tho  object 
of  the  prophecy — himself. 

That  Whitney's  whole  life  was  to  be  spent  in  stemming 
iho  dull,  resistant  tide  of  human  meanness,  and  the  shafts 
of  f'alumny,  he  then  little  knew,  but  seemed  for  it  even  then 
prepared.  Prepared  was  he  also,  not  only  in  grace  of  soul, 
but  in  a  trained  mathematical  mind. 

In  college  he  betrayed  his  scientific  genius — a  stroke 
quite  out  of  the  ordinary  in  that  day  of  the  classics'  sole 
tyranny  over  an  education. ^  Men  even  then  noted  how  his 
talent  was  confined,  not  to  the  course,  but  overflowed  as 
usual  into  invention.  In  an  astronomical  experiment,  for 
instance,  when  the  apparatus  broke  down,  Whitney  dared 
ask  to  repair  it  in  place  of  its  being  sent  abroad.  In 
addition  to  this  mechanical  practicability,  however,  his 
stopping  to  get  an  education  in  the  higher  branches  was 
itself  a  mark  of  his  inventive  originality.  For  all  along 
the  advice  of  unlettered  machinists  had  been  against  it, 
and  one  had  said:  "There  was  one  good  mechanic  spoiled 
when  you  went  to  college. ' ' 

First  having  avoided  the  extreme  of  the  academic,  now 
avoiding  this  extreme  advice  of  the  mechanic,  it  seemed  as 
if  he  were  now  to  fall  back  at  last  into  the  academic,  miss 
his  talent — and  study  law. 


lA   tyranny   over  liberal   education   which   has  swung   the   other 
way  to  technical  science. 


62  MASTER    MINDS 

THE  TURNING   POINT   IN  HIS  LIFE 

With  this  in  view,  like  most  young  men  of  early  days,  in 
order  to  lay  by  the  means  he  set  out  to  teach  school. 
Offered  a  position  as  tutor  to  a  South  Carolina  gentleman, 
at  eighty  guineas  a  year,  he  arranged  to  travel  south. 
Smallpox  delayed  the  New  York  voyage,  but  the  delay 
threw  him  into  the  friendship  of  another  party  waiting  to 
sail,  chief  among  whom  was  the  widow  of  Gen.  Nathaniel 
Greene. 

In  this  delay  he  learned  that  the  father  of  his  prospec- 
tive pupils  had  grown  tired  of  waiting  his  arrival,  in  the 
long  journey  of  those  days,  and  had  engaged  another  tutor. 
"While  on  the  vessel  to  Savannah  he  met  a  Yale  graduate, 
Phineas  Miller,  who  was  with  the  widow  of  General  Greene. 
To  meet  these  two  friends  proved  the  turning-point  in  his 
life.  As  he  confided  his  ambitions  to  this  lady,  she  mani- 
fested a  motherly  interest,  and  invited  him,  at  the  news  of 
his  lost  position,  to  Mulberry  Grove,  her  own  plantation 
near  Savannah. 


THE   INVENTION  OF   THE  GIN 

At  that  time  it  took  a  negro  a  day  to  clean  a  single 
pound  of  raw  cotton  and  separate  it  from  the  seed. 

Cotton  was  to  the  eyes  of  an  inquisitive  New  England 
young  man  itself  a  curiosity.  Whitney  had  never  seen  a 
cotton  boll,  or  seed,  or  plant.  The  West  Indies  had  grown 
all  that  had  been  used  in  any  quantity  in  America.  In 
1770  its  cultivation  was  tried,  and  it  was  found  to  grow 
prolifically  in  Georgia,  surpassing  even  rice,  tobacco  and 
indigo. 


IUjI     WHITNEY  63 

But  there  was  no  way  to  separate  the  fibre  from  the 
entangled  seeds  save  by  the  slow  hand-labor,  a  pound  a  day 
a  hand. 

By  1792,  but  one  hundred  thirty-eight  thousand  three 
hundred  and  twenty-four  pounds,  on  this  account,  were 
raised  for  export  in  an  entire  year.  Jay  considered  it  of 
so  little  importance  that  he  considered  its  being  placed  on 
the  prohibited  list  of  exports  as  an  item  of  no  loss.  But 
this  year  happened  the  crisis  that  made  cotton  king.  This 
crisis  was  the  invention  of  the  cotton-gin. 

It  was  this  way.  A  group  of  Southern  gentlemen  were 
being  entertained  at  the  great  house  at  Mulberry  Grove  by 
Mrs.  Nathaniel  Greene,  amid  the  emerald  live  oaks  and 
magnolias,  under  the  white-pillared  portico. 

Languidly  as  they  lighted  their  cigars  and  smoked,  they 
bemoaned  the  slow  manner  of  extracting  cotton-seed  from 
the  cotton-boll. 

' '  Why  don 't  you  go  to  work  and  get  something  that  will 
do  it,  gentlemen  ? ' '  exclaimed  Madam  Greene. 

**Your  good  husband,  the  General,  though  he  cleaned  the 
redcoats  out  of  Georgia,  couldn't  clean  the  seeds  from  cot- 
ton." was  shot  back  as  the  cavalierish  answer. 

"Apply  to  my  young  friend  here;  he  can  make  any- 
thing," replied  Mrs.  Greene.  ''My  tambour  frame  was  all 
out  of  kilter ;  I  couldn  't  embroider  at  all  with  it  because  it 
pulled  and  tore  the  threads  so  badly.  Mr.  Whitney  noticed 
this,  took  it  out  on  the  porch,  tinkered  with  it  a  little,  and 
there  see  what  he  has  done — just  made  the  frame  as  good 
as  new ! ' ' 

''As  for  cleaning  cotton-seed,"  exclaimed  Mr.  Whitney, 
blushing,  "  why,  gentlemen,  I  shouldn't  know  it  if  I  saw 
it.  I  don't  think  I  ever  saw  cotton  or  cotton-seed  in  my 
life." 


64  MASTER    MINDS 

But  next  day  he  caught  his  first  sight  of  raw  cotton,  took 
it  back  to  the  Greene  plantation,  and  made  cotton  his 
study  in  place  of  law. 

Green-seed  or  short-stapled  cotton,  in  contrast  to  black- 
seed,  which  grew  only  by  the  sea-shore,  could  be  grown 
evers^where  in  Georgia  and  the  Southern  uplands,  where  no 
other  crops  could  grow,  if  only  there  was  some  way  to  sepa- 
rate the  seeds,  which  were  hopelessly  entangled. 

That  he  might  invent  a  machine  to  do  this,  in  secret  con- 
fidence Mrs.  Greene  gave  Eli  Whitney  a  private  room  in 
which  to  experiment.  Here  first  he  had  to  draw  his  own 
wire  and  make  his  own  tools.  By  May  27th,  1793,  Phineas 
Miller  became  interested,  and  entered  into  partnership. 

It  has  been  said  there  were  no  records  of  his  first  labor. 
But  there  is  a  record,  and  that  his  own.  The  21st  of 
November,  1793,  he  wrote  a  letter  to  Thomas  Jefferson,  Sec- 
retary of  State.     In  this  he  said : 

"Within  about  ten  days  after  my  first  conception  of  the 
plan,  I  made  a  small  though  imperfect  model.  Experi- 
ments with  this  encouraged  me  to  make  one  on  a  larger 
scale ;  but  the  extreme  difficulty  of  procuring  workmen  and 
proper  materials  in  Georgia  prevented  my  completing  the 
large  one  until  some  time  in  April  last." 

To  get  their  pound  or  so  a  day,  Whitney  had  observed 
old  negro  mammies  claw  off  the  seed  with  their  finger-nails. 
Could  not  a  cylinder  wheel,  covered  with  the  teeth  of  a  wire 
comb,  do  the  same  thing?  Whitney's  idea  was  to  place  the 
enteethed  rollers  so  near  the  cotton  sticking  out  of  an 
upper  hopper  of  iron  wire  mesh  that  it  would  catch  hold  of 
the  mass  and  claw  away  the  torn  fibre  from  the  seed- 
boll. 

The  openings  in  the  gratings  of  the  hopper  that  held  the 
mass    of   raw   cotton,    though   permitting   the   torn    fibre 


ELT    WHITNEY  65 

caught  in  the  saw-like  teeth  to  drop,  were  too  narrow  for 
the  seeds  to  fall  thi-oiigh — hence  the  separation. 

The  brushes  were  arranged  on  the  second  roller,  or 
cylinder,  traveling  the  opposite  way,  but  touching  the  cot- 
ton in  the  claw-teeth  of  the  first  cylinder  and  removing  it. 

Thus  designed  was  the  machine  that  was  to  enable  one 
negro  to  clean  five  thousand  pounds  of  cotton  a  day ! 

It  so  revolutionized  cotton-planting  that  by  1800,  to  say 
nothing  of  home  consumption  in  America,  one  hundred  and 
fifty  times  the  cotton  was  exported  (eighteen  million  pounds 
instead  of  one  hundred  and  thirty-eight  thousand  three 
hundred  and  twenty-four  pounds  in  1792).  By  1860  over 
two  billion  and  fifty  million  pounds  a  year  were  exported 
(four  million  eight  hundred  and  twenty-four  thousand 
bales  at  four  hundred  and  twenty-five  pounds  a  bale) . 

Such  an  invention  was  hailed  with  tremendous  enthu- 
siasm. 

Whitney's  battle  witpi  the  Px\tent  thieves 

Crowds  in  flocks  came  from  every  quarter  to  see  the 
wondrous  design.  Unable  to  see  it  until  patented,  they 
broke  open  the  house  and  carried  it  away.  The  thieves 
then  reproduced  the  model. 

Hence  arose  the  swarm  of  competitors  who  were  to  con- 
test Mr.  Whitney's  design  Avith  the  stolen  one,  which  was 
really  not  their  ovm,  but  his. 

"My  invention,"  wrote  Whitney  to  his  fellow  inventor, 
Fulton,  "was  new  and  distinct  from  every  other.  It  stood 
alone.  It  was  not  interwoven  with  anything  known  before ; 
and  it  can  seldom  happen  that  an  invention  or  an  improve- 
ment is  so  strongly  marked  and  can  be  so  clearly  and 
specially  identified." 

"The  use  of  the  machine  being  immensely  profitable  to 
almost  every  planter  in  the  cotton  districts,  all  were  inter- 
5 


66  MASTER    MINDS 

ested  in  trespassing  on  the  patent  right,  and  each  kept  each 
other  in  countenance.  Demagogues  made  themselves  pop- 
ular by  misrepresentation  and  unfounded  clamors,  both 
against  the  right  and  against  the  law  made  for  its  protec- 
tion. Hence  there  arose  associations  to  oppose  both.  At 
one  time  but  few  men  in  Georgia  dared  to  come  into  the 
court  and  testify  to  the  most  simple  facts  within  their 
Imowledge  relative  to  the  use  of  the  machine.  In  one 
instance  I  had  great  difficulty  in  proving  that  the  machine 
had  been  used  in  Georgia,  although  there  Avere  three  sepa- 
rate sets  of  this  machinery  in  motion  within  fifty  yards  of 
the  building  in  which  the  court  sat,  and  all  so  near  that  the 
rattling  of  the  wheels  was  distinctly  heard!" 

Backed  as  he  was  by  Phineas  Miller,  Eli  Whitney  imme- 
diately went  north  to  New  Haven,  completed  a  new  model 
and  commenced  the  manufacture  of  cotton-gins. 

The  planters  planted  a  greatly  increased  acreage,  and  an 
arrangement  was  made  with  them  to  give  one-third  of  the 
profits  to  the  gin-o^^Tiers,  cotton  selling  at  that  time  at 
twenty-five  cents  a  pound. 

October  26.  1794,  Miller  wrote  to  Whitney : 

"Do  not  let  anything  hinder  the  speedy  construction  of 
the  gins.     The  people  are  almost  running  mad  for  them!" 

Gins  in  New  Haven  could  not  be  made  in  sufficient  num- 
ber to  meet  the  demand  of  the  enlarged  crop.  This  gave 
the  venders  of  the  stolen  model  their  chance  to  produce  and 
sell  imitations. 

THE  FIGHT  AGAINST  THE  CURRENTS  OF  DEBT,  FIRE,  THEFT  AND 

DEATH 

The  money  from  one-third  of  the  crop  was  much  of  it  to 
be  lost,  and  Whitney  and  his  partner  soon  found  them- 
selves financially  embarrassed. 


ELI    WniTNEY  67 

In  March,  1795,  aftor  beinp:  taken  with  an  illno55s,  Eli 
Whitney  returned,  still  half  sick,  from  New  York  to  New 
Haven,  to  find  fire  had  bnrned  his  entire  factory ! 

To  opposition  and  lack  of  funds  was  added  now  this  con- 
flap:ration  in  New  ITaven !  The  fire  bnrned,  besides  all  the 
factory,  the  new  machines,  with  all  desip^ns,  books  and 
papers,  and  the  firm  was  left  banlo'npt! 

Yet  came  another  blow.  Enjifland,  which  was  so  soon  to 
become  the  world's  factoiy  centre  for  the  mannfactnre  of 
America's  cotton,  now  raised  a  formidable  outcry,  being 
falsely  led  to  a  belief  by  Whitney's  enemies  that  his 
machine  ruined  the  cotton  fibre,  making  it  too  brittle.  In 
Georgia  alone  twenty-eight  gins  lay  idle. 

"This  misfortune  is  much  heavier  than  the  fire,"  wrote 
Miller.  "Every  one  is  afraid  of  the  cotton.  Not  a  pur- 
chaser in  Savannah  will  pay  a  full  price  for  it."  "I  con- 
fess myself  to  have  been  entirely  deceived  in  supposing  that 
an  egregious  error,  and  a  general  deception  with  regard  to 
the  quality  of  our  cotton,  could  not  long  continue  to 
influence  the  whole  of  the  mannfactory,  the  mercantile  and 
the  planting  interests  against  us.  But  the  reverse  is  the 
fact,  and  I  have  long  apprehended  that  our  ruin  would  be 
the  inevitable  consequence. ' ' 

In  1796,  humiliated  by  being  compelled  to  seek  loans, 
Whitney  had  already  written  a  friend : 

"I  applied  to  one  of  those  vultures  called  brokers,  who 
are  preying  on  the  purse-strings  of  the  industrious."  He 
paid  twenty  per  cent.,  which  was  increased  right  along  by 
this  shark  to  five,  six  and  seven  per  cent,  a  month! 

But  from  the  first  the  calibre  of  the  yonng  men  was  fixed, 
as  is  shown  in  1795  in  an  early  letter  of  Miller  to  Whitney. 

"I  think  indeed  it  will  be  very  extraordinary  if  two 
young   men   in   the    prime    of   life,  with    some    share    of 


08  MASTER    31 IND8 

ingenuity,  witli  n  littlo  knowledge  of  the  world,  a  prr^at  deal 
of  industry,  and  a  eonsidorable  command  of  property, 
should  not  be  able  to  siistain  such  a  stroke  of  misfortune 
as  this,  heavy  as  it  is." 

Yet  Ynle  p-rit  was  on  hand  for  the  uphill  pfame,  for  in 
March,  1797,  Miller  wrote: 

"Am  determined  that  all  the  dark  clouds  of  adversity 
shall  not  abate  my  ardor  in  laborinji:  to  burst  through  them, 
in  order  to  reach  the  dawn  of  prosperity." 

Already  a.s  an  earnest  of  tbis  prrit,  Miller  had  p^iven  up 
all  bis  means  and  bis  hopes  of  a  home,  even  refusinfj:  to 
marry. 

Yet  M'ilb  il.  all.  by  Oct.  17,  1797,  he  was  forced  to  say: 
"The  extreme  embarrassments  which  have  been  for  a  long 
time  accumulating'  upon  me  are  now  become  so  great  that  it 
will  be  impossible  for  me  to  struggle  against  them  many 
days  longer.    11  lia.s  rc(|uired  my  utmost  exertions  to  exist." 

"The  current  of  disappointment  carrying  down  the  cat- 
aract" his  "shattered  oar"  and  "a  struggle  in  vain,"— to 
all  these  ho  pointed  in  the  words  of  an  oarsman  who  has 
been  beaten. 

In  1799  he  followed  up  the  situation  with  this  letter: 

"The  prospect  of  making  anything  by  ginning  in  this 
State  is  at  an  end.  Surreptitious  gins  are  erected  in  every 
part  of  the  country,  and  the  jurymen  at  Augusta  have 
come  to  an  understanding  among  themselves  that  they  will 
never  give  a  verdict  in  our  favor,  let  the  merits  of  the  case 
be  a.s  they  may. ' ' 

In  1803,  unable  to  bear  the  erusb  of  human  meanness 
and  oppression,  Miller  broke  dowTi  and  died.  Rut  the  race 
Avas  not  lost.  It  was  to  be  won  by  Whitney  alone.  Yet 
without  Miller's  great  soul  and  sacrifice,  Whitney  could 
never  have  succeeded. 


ELI    WHITNEY  69 

Having  gotten  so  far,  refusing  to  lie  down,  he  fought  it 
out.  "In  all  my  experience  in  the  profefssion  of 
law,"  wrote  his  consultin<r  counsel,  "I  have  never  seen  such 
a  case  of  perseverance  under  such  persecutions,  nor  do  I 
believe  that  I  ever  knew  any  other  man  who  would  have 
met  them  Math  equal  coolness  and  firmness." 

Had  it  not  been  for  Eli  "Whitney's  liberal  education  he 
would  never  have  had  the  trained  mathematical  mind;  he 
would  never  have  been  thrown  \Wth  people  of  influence 
such  as  the  Greenes  of  Georgia,  and  he  would  never  have 
met  the  chance  to  make  his  discovery.  Furthermore,  now 
to  sustain  his  discovery  comes  in  again  and  again  the  use 
of  this  same  higher  education,  especially  in  law. 

Public  opinion,  blinded  in  America  and  in  England,  had 
to  be  undeceived.  At  the  same  time  came  the  necessity  of 
appearing  before  courts,  State  and  National,  in  never- 
ending  arguments. 

We  have  said  had  not  Eli  Whitney  gone  to  Yale,  he 
would  not  have  invented  the  cotton-gin  in  the  first  place. 
Now  we  see  indeed  that  had  he  not  gone  to  Yale,  he  would 
never  have  had  the  education  and  knowledge  to  have  been 
able  to  defend  his  invention  in  the  second  place. 

Public  opinion  as  to  gin-cleaned  cotton  he  first  won  back, 
and  wheels  again  whirred  everywhere  in  the  South  in  the 
process  of  separating  the  staple  from  the  seed. 

In  the  gaining  of  his  patent-right,  however,  lay  the  only 
assurance  of  financial  return  to  meet  his  debts  incurred  in 
the  long,  long  battle  for  his  rights. 

The  first  law,  in  1797,  against  violators  of  his  patent  was 
lost  through  the  prejudice  of  a  Southern  jurj',  though  the 
law  itself  was  on  Whitney's  side. 

The  whole  South  now  broke  the  patent,  Whitney 's  rights 
being  almost  altogether  unrespected.     To  recoup  his  crush- 


70  MA8TEB    MINDS 

ing  debt  of  many  thousands  incurred  in  the  invention  and 
manufacture  of  gins,  now  seemed  impossible.  Was  it  after 
all  a  losing  battle  ? 

Perhaps  not,  for  a  partial  victory  resulted  in  Whitney's 
proposition  to  the  Legislature  of  South  Carolina  to  pur- 
chase his  patent  in  that  State  for  one  hundred  thousand 
dollars.  The  Legislature  voted  to  pay  fifty  thousand  dol- 
lars. 

North  Carolina  and  Tennessee  followed  by  fixing  a  tax  of 
two  shillings  and  six  pence  on  every  saw  for  ginning 
cotton  for  five  years,  the  annual  collection  to  be  paid  Whit- 
ney. Tennessee  did  the  same,  placing  the  tax  even  higher, 
at  thirty-seven  and  one-half  cents  a  year  for  four  years. 

South  Carolina,  however,  was  later  moved  to  rescind  its 
law,  even  enacting  a  hostile  bill  in  its  place,  for  the  recov- 
ery of  all  money  paid  the  inventor.  Other  states  subse- 
quently weakened  in  their  defense  of  Whitney's  patent- 
rights.  South  Carolina,  to  her  fair  name  be  it  recorded, 
three  years  after  rescinded  the  second  law,  restoring  the 
first. 

Still  it  was  a  fight  all  along  the  line,  and  was  to  be  up  to 
the  last.  In  1812  Whitney  petitioned  the  United  States 
Congress  for  a  renewal  of  his  patent,  but  without  success, 
owing  to  the  predominating  prejudice  of  Southern  senti- 
ment in  Congress. 

"Eepublics  are  ungrateful,"  might  well  be  the  epitaph 
with  which  to  end  Whitney's  struggle  were  it  not  for  the 
next  thing  to  come. 

WHITNEY  FOUNDS  THE  FIRST  UNITED  STATES  ARSENAL 

As  early  as  1798,  despairing  of  ever  restoring  his  shat- 
tered fortunes,  he  decided  to  turn  his  inventive  genius  to 
the  manufacture  of  muskets  and  fire-arms.     The  Govern- 


l£  L  I     W 11 1  T  N  IC  Y  71 

ment  of  the  ITnitod  States  encouraj;ed  him  with  an  order 
for  ten  thousand  muskets,  advancing-  live  tliousand  dollars, 
and  adding  an  extra  fifteen  thousand  dollars  later.  This, 
with  a  loan  of  ten  thousand  dollars  from  friends,  enabled 
the  inventor  to  erect  on  the  beautiful  shores  of  Lake  Whit- 
ney, near  New  Haven,  his  model  arsenal  for  the  manufac- 
ture of  fire-arms. 

England  had  prohibited  a  factory  for  fire-arms  in  Amer- 
ica, all  arms  used  in  the  Revolution  being  smuggled  from 
France  or  seized  as  prizes  taken  from  England.  Hence, 
no  lathes,  engines,  planing,  milling  or  slotting  machines  for 
gun  manufacture  existed.  Yet  Whitney  produced  them 
all,  and  for  power  proceeded  to  make  use  of  the  great 
amount  of  running  power  about  Lake  Whitney's  water- 
basin. 

The  unifonnity  system  was  here  bom  in  his  brain  and  is 
now  in  use  all  over  the  world.  It  is  the  system  of  assigning 
to  each  particular  mechanic  one  particular  part,  to  the 
making  of  which,  as  a  specialty,  he  should  devote  himself. 

Ridiculed  and  laughed  down,  Whitney  carried  many 
parts  of  each  kind  that  go  to  make  up  a  musket,  to  Wash- 
ington, and  from  a  number  of  piles  proceeded  rapidly  to 
pick  out  the  parts  and  construct,  in  quick  succession,  mus- 
ket after  musket,  making  ten  before  the  astonished  gaze  of 
the  members  of  Congress ! 

With  all  this,  it  was  not  until  1817  that  Whitney  emerged 
from  financial  and  legal  struggles,  and  achieved  the  dis- 
tant yearnings  to  enable  him  to  settle  down  and  found  a 
home.  This  he  did  by  marrying  a  direct  descendant  of 
Jonathan  Edwards,  the  youngest  daughter  of  Judge 
Edwards  of  the  District  Court  of  Connecticut. 

He  had  hardly  become  settled  and  founded  a  family, 
whose  descendants  carry  that  honored  name  to-day,  when. 


72  MASTER    MINDS 

at  the  age  of  fifty-nine  years,  after  his  settlement  by  the 
beautiful  waters  of  the  lake,  he  died  of  an  enlargement  of 
the  glands,  a  malady  science  could  not  then  cure. 

WHITNEY  A  POUNDER  OF  AMERICA 

He  did  not  die,  however,  before  his  work  was  done.  As 
Macaulay  concluded: 

''What  Peter  the  Great  did  to  make  Russia  dominant, 
Eli  Whitney,  inventor  of  the  cotton-gin,  has  more  than 
equaled  in  its  relation  to  the  power  and  progress  of  the 
United  States." 

Through  King  Cotton,  Whitney  not  only  made  the  South 
— he  fed  the  cotton-spindles  of  all  the  North,  and  he  not 
only  planted  the  North  with  factories,  but  by  the  cotton  to 
be  manufactured  he  has  given  millions  work  across  the  sea 
in  England,  the  withdrawal  of  which  product,  even  for  a 
little  while  during  the  Civil  War,  was  such  a  disaster  as  to 
paralyze  in  England  the  wheels  of  industry  and  make 
bread-riots  everywhere. 

The  revolution  of  Whitney's  invention  did  even  more. 
Like  every  truth  that  is  ever  discovered,  its  effect 
was  not  only  industrial.  However  undesignedly  so, 
it  was  political  and  moral.  It  upset  the  course  of  govern- 
ment itself.  It  turned  the  wheel  of  a  Southern  slave 
empire  from  its  hinges.  Through  its  marvelous  increase 
of  cotton,  it  unconsciously  increased  to  its  anti-climax  the 
slave  power,  till  it  over-topped  itself,  and  having  to  get 
worse  before  it  could  get  better,  burst  into  the  Rebel- 
lion  to  end  in  the  Emancipation  Proclamation. 

Before  the  youth  of  to-day,  Massachusetts  and  Yale  Uni- 
versity cannot  honor  his  name  enough,  nor  the  name  of  his 
school  partner,  Phineas  Miller. 


ELIWniTNEY  73 

A  distingnished  visitor  to  Yale,  and  a  great  son  of  Har- 
vard/ lately  remarked: 

"At  the  great  bi-centennial  celebration  of  New  Haven, 
nobody  in  four  days  of  experience  and  song  had  one  word 
to  say  about  this  graduate  of  the  University,  though  he  had 
by  one  invention  revolutionized  the  commerce  of  the 
world." 

But  Whitney  is  a  founder  of  America;  a  founder  of 
economic  and  political  foundations. 

Speaking  of  Jefferson,  and  the  other  leaders  of  the  post- 
Revolutionary  period,  this  same  great  son  of  Harvard  gave 
as  his  ripe  perspective: 

"The  four  men  who  can  be  named  as  leaders  w^ere  the 
four  foimders:  Bonaparte,  Livingstone,  Whitney  and 
Robert  Fulton.  Such  men  as  the  Political  Presidents  and 
leaders  did  not  make  the  America  of  1812.  Whitney 
played  a  much  more  important  part  in  the  development  of 
the  country  than  Jefferson  did  himself." 

Such  a  master  mind  well  introduces  circles  of 
mechanical  inventors  of  every  kind  that  have  since  made 
the  Heart  of  the  Commonwealth  of  Massachusetts  peerless 
for  inventive  genius. 

THOMAS   BLANCHARD    AND   THE   MECHANICS   OF   WORCESTER 

Whitney  is  but  one  of  many.  For  instance,  a  contempo- 
rary of  Whitney,  bom  at  Sutton,  Massachusetts,  in  1788 — 
Thomas  Blanchard — showed  a  like  remarkable  ingenuity 
for  invention  which  everywhere  throbbed  throughout  the 
region. 

Blanchard  was  a  noted  whittler  from  the  first,  whittling 
wind-mills  and  water-wheels  to  the  admiration  of  the  coun- 


lEdward  Everett  Hale. 


74  MASTERMINDS 

tryside.  He  made  many  inventions,  such  as  a  machine  for 
making  five  hundred  tacks  a  minute,  improved  steamboats 
and  locomotives,  envelope  machinery  and,  strange  to  say,  a 
locomobile  or  steam  wagon — before  the  automobile  was 
dreamt  of,  save  in  Mother  Shipton's  prophecy.  Yet  most 
memorable  of  the  remarkable  creations  of  his  genius  was 
the  lathe  for  turning  all  kinds  of  irregular  forms. 

Beginning  with  a  gun-barrel,  whose  forms  were  at  one 
time  laboriously  outw^orked  by  hand,  he  produced  a 
machine  for  turning  and  finishing  gTin-barrels  at  a  single 
operation. 

Then  when  men  refused  to  believe  it,  he  performed  the 
feat  before  them.  Told  he  certainly  could  not  turn  the 
stock,  he  at  once  turned  his  wonderful  macliine  to  curving 
out  the  formerly  hand-worked  stock. 

Once  invented  and  patented  in  1820,  the  machine  has 
since  been  one  of  the  world's  great  tools  for  turning  out, 
at  a  single  operation,  irregular  forms  of  ahnost  any  pat- 
tern. 

It  is  a  mechanical  wonder  to-day  to  see  the  Blanchard 
lathe  at  work,  as  curves  grow  out  of  once  rough  blocks  into 
the  designed  pattern,  bent  and  convoluted  as  it  may  be. 

Blanchard  was,  however,  like  Whitney,  but  a  path- 
breaker  in  the  zone  of  invention  that  was  to  possess  the  ter- 
ritory in  which  he  lived. 

"The  mechanics  of  Worcester,"  once  declared  Senator 
George  Frisbie  Hoar,  "were  unsurpassed  for  their  inge- 
nuity anywhere  on  the  face  of  the  earth.  Worcester  was 
the  centre  and  home  of  invention.  Within  a  circle  of 
twelve  miles'  radius  was  the  home  of  Blanchard,  the 
inventor  of  the  machine  for  turning  irregular  forms;  of 
EUas  Howe,  the  inventor  of  the  sewing-machine;  of  Eli 
Whitney,  the  inventor  of  the  cotton-gin,  which  doubled  the 


Thomas  Blanch a rd 
Invt'iitor  of  a  New  Principle  in  Mechanics 


ELT    WHITNEY  75 

value  of  every  acre  of  cotton-prodncing  bind  in  the  coun- 
try; of  Erastus  B.  Bij?elow,  the  inventor  of  the  carpet- 
machine;  of  Ilawes,  the  inventor  of  the  envelope-machine; 
of  Crompton  and  Knowles,  the  creators  and  pcrfecters  of 
the  modern  loom;  of  Rno-o-les,  Nourse  and  Mason,  in  whose 
establislmient  the  modern  plane  was  brought  to  perfection, 
and  a  great  variety  of  other  agricultural  implements 
invented  and  improved. 

* '  There  were  many  other  men  whose  inventive  genius  and 
public  usefulness  were  entitled  to  rank  with  these. '  '^ 


iGeorge  Frisbie  Hoar,  "Autobiography  of  Seventy  Years,"  Vol. 
II,  p.  159.  An  elaborated  account  of  great  inventors  within  twelve 
miles  of  Worcester  occurs  in  the  New  England  Magazine  of  Novem- 
ber and  December,  1904,  where  Senator  Hoar  writes  most  inter- 
estingly in  conjunction  with  Hon.  A.  S.  Eoe  on  "Worcester  County 
Inventors. ' ' 


ELIAS  HOWE 

INVENTOR   OF  THE  SEWING-MACHINE 

UP  to  a  day  in  1837,  P]]ias  Howe,  the  hill-town  boy  of 
Spencer,  Worcester  County,  Massachusetts,  to 
iiinny  may  have  seemed  the  same  as  the  idlers  who 
carved  their  names  on  the  dry-goods  boxes  in  front  of  the 
village  store.  To  those  who  knew  him  best  it  was  not  so. 
"To  the  contrar\%  my  father's  early  life  and  character  were 
full  of  purpose,"  declares  his  daughter.^ 

On  this  day,  to  this  curly-headed  joker,  something 
happened.  That  something  discovered  the  soul  of  the 
one  some  thought  only  a  happy-go-lucky  fellow  standing 
there  ^^ath  his  hands  in  his  pockets.  It  was  just  a  keyword 
dropped  by  another,  but  this  unlocked  his  life-plan,  namely, 
the  invention  of  the  sewing-machine,  the  machine  that  has 
broken  the  yoke  of  human  labor  and  rendered  a  hundred- 
fold as  bearable  the  work  of  women. 

THE  FLASH  OF  THE  SUGGESTION  INTO  HOWE'S  MIND 

Elias  Howe  suddenly  at  this  time  of  his  soul 's  awakening 
felt  caught  by  the  dream  suggested  by  a  tinker,  who  hap- 
pened in  and  who  had  in  view  a  knitting-machine. 

"Why  don't  you  make  a  sewing-machine?"  came  a  ques- 
tion from  Ari  Davis,  head  of  the  store,  as  he  punctured  the 
drift  of  the  conversation. 


iMrs.  Jane  E.  Caldwell,  of  New  York,  in  a  letter  of  Sept.  28,  1909. 


78  MASTER    MINDS 

Unawares,  he  had  also  punctured  the  drift  of 
bo^'ishness  in  Elias  Howe,  who  suddenly  felt  his  mind 
hitched  to  a  star.  From  that  star  he  never  broke  away  till 
he  evolved  the  creation  his  awakened  genius  leaped  to 
embrace. 

In  reply  to  Ari  Davis'  question,  the  rest  of  the  talk  ran 
on  as  follows: 

"It  can't  be  done,"  said  the  tinker. 

"Yes,  it  can." 

"Do  it,"  said  the  dreamer  to  Davis,  "and  I'll  ensure 
you  an  independent  fortune. ' ' 

The  tinkeriner  Yankee  inventor  himself  gave  it  up.  He 
could  not  grasp  the  thought  or  give  it  conception.  But  the 
awkward  green  hand  standing  by  could,  and  from  that 
moment  of  the  birth  of  his  genius  the  twenty-year-old 
country  boy  took  his  hands  out  of  his  pockets  and  buried 
them  in  a  creative  purpose. 


HOWE — THE    CRIPPLED    SPENCER    BOY 

The  under  layers  of  invention  thus  tapped  bear  high 
tribute  to  the  race  that  came  flowing  down  from  the  racial 
reserv'oir  in  the  New  England  hill-town  of  Spencer. 

However  poor  in  goods  and  chattels  the  Howe  family 
happened  to  be,  the  Howe  birthrights  were  rich  in  blood. 
N.  P.  Banks  was  a  cousin,  and  Elias  Howe's  uncle  was 
designer  of  the  first  truss  bridge  erected  in  America,  that 
over  the  Connecticut  at  Springfield.  Tyler  Howe,  another 
uncle,  was  the  inventor  of  the  spring  bed. 

The  year  1819,  on  the  9th  of  July,  saw  Elias  Howe 
born  here  in  Spencer  into  a  farmer's  and  miller's  family, 
one    of   eight   children,    and    at   first    partially   crippled. 


ELI  AS     HO  W  E  79 

Worcester  County  inventive  infjeniiity  was  there  in  full 
force,  as  eonid  luivc  boon  witnossod  by  a  siirbt  of  the  eight 
boys  and  gfirls,  all  busy  with  strips  of  leather,  into  which 
their  busy  fingrers  stuck  wire  teeth  for  carding  cotton. 

The  buzz  of  his  father's  mill-wheels  filled  the  air  at  all 
times,  and  found  in  happy-hearted  Elias  a  delighted 
observer  and  an  unconscious  student. 

Yet  to  break  the  strain  upon  the  family  purse-strings,  at 
the  age  of  eleven  he  left  his  father's  house,  and  relieved 
the  home  struggle  by  going  to  live  out  with  a  neighbor  for 
a  year.  After  this  the  boy  returned  home.  At  sixteen,  in 
1835,  he  fell  into  the  tide  of  country  lads  who  drifted  into 
the  Lowell  factories  for  the  making  of  cotton-machines. 

Afloat  again  in  two  years,  and  unemployed,  he  found 
himself  before  the  door  of  a  Cambridge  machine-shop.  In 
turn,  leaving  this  shop,  where  he  carded  hemp  wdth  his 
cousin.  N.  P.  Banks,  by  whose  side  he  worked,  Elias  Howe 
sauntered  into  the  big  city  of  Boston  to  the  place  of  Ari 
Davis,  the  maker  of  mathematical  instruments,  whose  shop 
was  the  place  Ari  Davis  put  his  question  to  the  tinker. 

Edison's  youth  was  considered,  in  so  far  as  it  was  con- 
sidered at  all  by  others,  a  failure.  Sent  home  as  a  lunk- 
head, given  up  by  his  teachers,  his  mother  alone  believing 
in  him,  his  genius  lay  hidden  in  an  apparent  husk  of  mental 
denseness.  But  chaos,  without  form  and  void,  once  had  in 
it  the  raw  material  of  a  world,  and  often  has  of  a  man,  can 
there  but  be  some  great  soul  behind  it  to  give  it  the  right 
suggestion  and  the  shaping  force.  This  came  to  Edison 
and  it  came  to  Howe. 

Through  the  dream  suggested  by  the  strolling  tinker  in 
Ari  Damns'  shop,  this  shaping  force  was  given  to  Elias 
Howe,  and  the  aimless  Spencer  boy  rose  to  the  stature  of 
a  creator,  to  create  something  yet  non-existent! 


80  MASTER    MINDS 

DESPERATION  DRI\'ES  HIM  TO  INSPIRATION 

But  it  took  a  long  period  for  the  clouds  to  roll  from  the 
void  in  which  Howe  wandered. 

A  year  later,  at  twenty-one,  he  found  himself  married, 
and  with  children  beginning  to  arrive,  while  he  began  to 
decline  into  a  semi-invalid,  exhausted  after  a  long  day's 
toil  lasting  from  morning  candle-light  till  candle-light  at 
night. 

Watching  his  wife's  sore  fingers  stitch,  stitch,  stitch,  he 
came  home  night  after  night  to  his  attic,  to  the  tragedy  of 
poverty.  He  could  but  fling  himself  upon  the  bed  and  lie 
there,  supperles.s,  with  appetite  lost  through  overwork,  and 
no  longing  left  but  ' '  to  lie  in  bed  forever. ' ' 

But  such  desperation  at  a  time  when  he  was  forced  to 
see  his  wife  take  in  sewing,  proved  the  inspiration  that 
drove  him  on  in  his  purpose  to  create  a  sewing-machine. 

"While  his  tired  wife  grew  thinner  and  thinner  as  she  plied 
the  madding  little  needle,  in  1843  there  haunt.ed  his  mind 
more  and  more  another  kind  of  needle,  a  kind  possible  to 
insert  in  a  machine. 

Should  it  be  a  needle  pointed  at  both  ends,  or  a  needle 
with  an  eye  in  the  centre  to  go  up  and  down  with  thread 
through  the  cloth?  Upon  this  he  worked  one  whole  year, 
only  to  find  it  a  failure. 

For  twelve  months  to  find  a  new  Idnd  of  frame  he 
whittled  on  the  design  of  a  new  device.  But  he  whittled 
not  as  the  drv'-goods-box  loafer.  He  whittled  to  a  purpose. 
He  whittled  to  a  plan  according  to  a  purposefulness  always 
in  him,  but  which  now  began  to  come  out. 

In  the  progress  of  the  year  his  creative  imagination 
broke  loose.  It  broke  loose  from  trying  to  imitate  any- 
thing in  existence.     It  dared  something  altogether  new! 


ELI  AS    now  E  81 

Why  not  two  threads — with  a  shuttle  to  lock  the  stitch 
by  a  second  thread  beneath,  and  above  a  curved  needle, 
with  an  eye  near  the  point  for  the  first  thread!  With  this 
the  invention  was  bom !  The  idea  thus  created  in  1844  he 
materialized  at  once  into  a  model.^ 

By  October,  1844,  he  completed  the  shape  of  the  rough 
model  of  wood  and  wire. 

It  sewed ! 

It — made — the — finished — stitch — in — the — cloth! 

It — could — sew — three — hundred — sti  tches — a — minute ! 

But  Howe  must  have  means  and  he  had  none!  For  a 
steel  and  iron  frame  three  hundred  dollars  was  needed  at 
once  and  unfortunately  the  brain  that  can  coin  an  inven- 
tion cannot  coin  money. 

Elias  Howe's  brother  had  in  conjunction  with  his  father 
in  Cambridgre  a  machine  which  cut  palm-leaves  into  strips. 
Joining  his  father  there,  Elias  worked  on  a  lathe  in  the 
attic.  But  his  father  found  the  venture  of  the  palm-leaf 
shop  a  failure,  owing  to  its  destruction  by  fire,  and  poverty 
again  stared  young  Howe  in  the  face. 

At  this  act  in  the  drama  of  the-dream-come-true — enter, 
a  friend! 


iThe  old  story  that  Howe  had  thought  so  much  of  this  invention 
that  it  invaded  his  dreams  is  probably  untrue.  "We  think  this  is 
very  improbable,"  write  his  family  to-day,  as  to  the  story  that 
circulated  the  statement  that  the  new  idea  of  a  single  needle  and 
shuttle-locked  stitch  beneath  came  concretely  in  an  actual  dream 
by  night. 

The  dream  was  said  to  have  been  of  a  king  who  ordered  Howe  to 
perfect  his  machine  or  lose  his  head.  He  failed,  and  saw  savage 
warriors  advancing  to  decapitate  him,  when  he  noted  holes  in  the 
spear  heads,  this  suggesting  the  new  needle  with  a  hole  at  its 
point. 


82  MASTER    MINDS 

The  friends  of  inventors !  To  them  should  belonof  a  hall 
of  fame. 

Without  them  many  inventions  would  have  never  been. 
"Without  Phineas  Miller  the  world  would  not  have  known 
Eli  Whitney's  cotton-^n;  without  Edison's  mother  the 
world  would  not  have  known  Edison.  Georere  Fisher  of 
Cambridge,  an  old  schoolmate  of  Howe,  at  this  trying  and 
desperate  time,  in  1844,  proved  the  friend  in  need.  He 
not  only  quartered  the  Howes  in  his  own  house,  but  he  con- 
tributed five  hundred  dollars,  thus  forming  a  partnership 
in  which  he  was  to  receive  half  of  the  profits. 

"I  believe,"  wrote  Fisher,  "I  was  the  only  one  of  his 
neighbors  and  friends  in  Cambridge  that  had  any  confidence 
in  the  success  of  the  invention.  He  was  generally  looked 
upon  as  very  visionary  in  undertaking  anything  of  the 
kind,  and  I  was  thought  very  foolish  in  assisting  him." 

But  HoAve  at  once  demonstrated  the  machine  by  making 
upon  it  two  suits  of  clothes  for  himself  and  his  partner. 

Packed  in  a  little  box  only  1x1^  cubic  feet,  Howe  exhib- 
ited his  model,  making  it  sew  at  exhibits  in  fairs  and  pub- 
lie  gatherings  and  private  demonstrations. 

Unlike  Whitney's,  his  patent,  secured  in  1845,  judicially 
wavS  again  and  again  affirmed.  Practically,  however, 
the  result  was  the  opposite.  Tailors  combined  in  the  great 
cities  against  him,  declaring  that  were  the  machine  intro- 
duced, in  ten  years  it  would  make  all  tailors  beggars ! 

The  cup  of  the  pathos  of  progress  Howe  now  tasted  to 
the  full. 

In  the  opposition  of  mankind  to  labor-saving  machinery, 
all  inventors  have  more  or  less  drained  the  same  chalice  of 
bitter  opposition.  Howe  M^as  no  exception.  Fear  of  jour- 
neymen's boycotts  kept  insulated  the  enthusiasm  of  the 
tailors,  yet  he  still  kept  his  courage.     Placing  a  machine 


ELIASnOWE  83 

in  Qiiincy  Hall,  he  by  actual  timirifr  sowed  seven  times 
as  swift  as  the  swiftest  picked  hand.  Then,  to  sit  and  sew 
at  a  demonstration  for  two  weeks,  Howe  challenged  five  of 
the  swiftest  seamstresses  on  ten  seams  of  five  yards — and 
won! 

To  make  the  patent  model  which  he  sent  to  "Washington, 
Mr.  Howe  had  to  work  three  months  in  a  garret.  To  keep 
food  in  his  children's  months  in  the  meantime,  in  the 
spring  of  1846,  he  had  to  piece  out  by  engineering  on  a 
railroad. 

Just  then  his  partner,  Fisher,  who  had  surrendered 
two  thousand  dollars  with  no  return,  felt  forced  to  give  up. 

At  last  once  patented,  the  machine  when  exhibited 
sewed,  it  is  true,  for  the  amusement  of  the  populace,  but 
this  was  not  a  money  return,  neither  did  it  allow  Howe 
even  material  support  or  the  machine  an  industrial  intro- 
duction. 

"I  had  lost  confidence  in  the  machine  ever  paying  any- 
thing, ' '  he  later  confessed. 

Health  now  completely  failed. 

Broken-hearted  as  to  an  American  response,  in  October, 
1846,  Elias  Howe  entrusted  his  precious  little  box,  enclosing 
the  model  machine,  to  the  steerage  of  an  English  vessel  on 
which  he  embarked  his  brother  for  England.  By  this 
brother,  Amasa,  he  was  to  try  entering  the  machine  there. 

But  Amasa  sold  his  rights  to  William  Thomas,  a  shrewd 
English  corset  and  carpet-bag  manufacturer.  Patented  in 
England,  on  each  machine  Thomas  arranged  that  Amasa 
Howe  should  be  paid  for  Elias  three  pounds.  IMaking  a 
verbal  contract  only  with  the  unsophisticated  young  New 
Englander,  Thomas  broke  his  side,  notwithstanding  that  he 
received  himself  ten  pounds  on  each  machine,  and  made 
for  himself  over  one  million  dollars ! 


84  MASTER    MINDS 

Elated  at  his  prospects,  Thomas  forwarded  the  money  to 
bring  over  Elias  Howe  himself  and  his  family,  that  Howe 
might  spend  eight  months  in  labor  to  adapt  his  machines  to 
corsets.  Elias  Howe  fell  to  the  plot,  and  arriving  in  Eng- 
land adapted  the  invention — only  to  find  himself  dis- 
charged ! 

A  coat-maker  gave  him  enough  means  to  rent  a  room  in 
which  to  construct  four  machines.  Before  he  could  do  so, 
life's  necessities  were  exhausted  and  Howe,  with  his 
pitiable  little  family,  had  to  leave  the  machines  uncom- 
pleted, going  from  three  rooms  to  one,  and  even  then  he  was 
forced  to  borrow  money  from  the  coat-malver  for  the  pur- 
chase of  bread  for  his  wife  and  children.  Finally  he  was 
reduced  to  the  alternative  of  either  embarking  them  for 
America  or  starving  them.  So  in  the  fog  of  a  soaking 
night,  IMrs.  Howe  and  her  family  Howe  tearfully  took  to 
the  place  of  embarkation.  Unable  even  to  transport  the 
party  by  carriage  or  express  wagon,  he  carried  the  luggage 
in  a  wheelbarrow.  As  his  wife  was  in  delicate  health  and 
hectic  from  consumption,  needing  all  the  care  wealth  could 
supply,  he  was  deeply  humiliated  and  harassed  by  these 
extremities. 

Returning,  he  remained  alone  to  cook  for  himself  in  a 
little  room,  and  to  finish  the  four  machines.  Finished, 
they  were  worth  fifty  pounds.     But  he  received  only  five ! 

Anxious  only  to  get  home,  one  machine  he  pawned,  also 
his  precious  patent  papers.  With  the  money  he  procured 
another  hand-cart,  in  which  he  carried  the  little  pack  of 
possessions  yet  left  to  the  ship  bound  for  America,  secur- 
ing passage  by  cooking  meals  for  the  emigrants. 

In  April,  1849,  four  years  since  his  first  machine,  he 
reached  New  York  with  one  half  a  crown,  to  find  news  that, 
broken  down,  his  wife  was  dying  of  consumption ! 


ELIASnOWE  85 

With  ten  dollars  borrowed  from  his  father,  he  reached 
his  wife's  side,  but  he  was  in  time  only  to  take  her  hand 
and  hear  her  last  breath. 

Close  upon  this  unspeakable  loss  came  the  staggering 
news  that  the  ship  he  had  embarked  his  models  and  posses- 
sions upon  from  New  York  was  lost  off  Cape  Cod. 

HOWE  VICTORIOUS 

Recovering  from  these  blows,  ''cast  down  but  not 
destroyed, "  as  a  journeyman  machinist  he  sought  to  renew 
his  shattered  fortunes.  Yet  in  going  about  he  opened  his 
eyes  to  see  his  machines  now  celebrated  in  the  United 
States,  but  himself  as  the  inventor  and  patentee  forgotten! 
Imitations,  too,  were  ever^^vhere  in  use. 

Instituting  patent-suits,  he  secured  deliverance  in  1847, 
and  triumphed  in  all  cases  over  infringements. 

A  new  partner,  by  name  George  Bliss,  was  found  to  buy 
the  half  interest  of  George  Fisher. 

Starting  again  in  1850  in  New  York  on  Gold  Street  with 
a  five-dollar  desk  and  two  fifty-cent  chairs,  the  indomitable 
heart  of  Howe  beat  as  strongly  as  ever,  notwithstanding  he 
stood  amidst  the  wrecks  of  everything  but  his  faith  in  the 
machines  which  he  exhibited  far  and  near. 

In  1854  the  patent-suit  against  S.  M.  Singer  being 
decided  in  his  favor,  all  contests  were  settled,  all  royalties 
became  his,  and  complete  victory  came  all  at  once. 

"No  successful  sewing-machine  has  ever  been  made 
which  does  not  contain  some  of  the  essential  devices  of  this 
first  attempt, ' '  was  the  brief  of  the  judicial  decisions,^ 


iWhile  Howe  did  not  get  his  working  idea  elsewhere,  it  should 
be  stated  that  as  early  as  1755,  in  Europe,  men  sought  to  invent 
a  machine  that  would  sew,  Thimonier  coming  nearest  to  a  solu- 
tion. Hunt,  in  America,  attempted  its  construction  in  1834,  but 
came  short  of  the  finish. 


86  MASTER    MINDS 

**  Every  adult  person  is  indebted  $200  for  the  amount 
saved  Mm  by  this  machine,"  declared  a  high  authority  on 
patent-rights. 

In  1863  Howe's  royalties  accrued  to  four  thousand  dol- 
lars a  day  and  totaled  two  million  dollars. 


HOWE — THE  MAN 

The  picture  of  Howe  exposes  a  face  kept  happy  by  his 
heart,  which  ever  through  all  the  crushing  blows  burnt 
God's  chemical  of  good-will.  The  curly-headed  Spencer 
boy  lived  still  unembittered  in  the  big-souled  man  of  forty- 
four,  and  retained  in  him  amid  all  outer  bitterness  a  sweet 
and  sunny  temper.  He  met  his  blows  with  a  quiet,  modest 
reserve,  only  chastened  by  them  from  his  early  merriment 
into  an  outer  placitude  w^hich  now  overflowed,  at  the  time 
of  fortune's  rapid  turn,  with  charity  for  all  mankind. 
This  charity  he  showed  till  his  death  from  Bright 's  disease 
Oct.  3,  1867. 

So  great  was  his  love  of  the  race,  and  so  deep  his  New 
England  conscience,  that  instead  of  nursing  a  tendency  to 
lameness,^  sitting  down  and  retiring  at  last  to  enjoy  in 
affluence  the  flower  of  his  long-spent  life,  he  offered  his 
means  and  his  life  to  his  country,  not  as  an  officer  but  as 
one  of  the  common  soldiers  in  the  ranks  of  the  Civil  "War. 

' '  He  was  a  man  of  peace, ' '  declares  his  daughter  to-day, 
"but  his  patriotism  was  great,  and  he  was  willing  to  serve 
his  country  to  the  extent  of  his  ability. ' ' 


1" Regarding  my  father's  lameness,  though  it  might  have  troubled 
him  at  times,  I  never  heard  him  complain  of  it,  and  doubt  that  except 
in  the  event  of  a  long  march,  he  was  disqualified  as  a  soldier. ' ' — From 
a  letter  from  his  daughter,  Sept.  S8th,  1909. 


Elias  Howe 
Inventor  of  the  Sewing-Machine 


ELIA^    nOWE  87 

Accepting  the  lot  of  a  plain  boy  in  blue,  he  was  ragged 
as  they  were  ragged,  he  suffered  as  they  suffered,  he  was 
hungry  as  they  were  hungry,  he  went  penniless  as  they 
went  penniless.  When  the  regiment  should  have  had  a 
pay-day,  as  a  private  he  appeared  before  the  paymaster  and 
stood  in  line  and,  when  it  came  to  salute  and  state  his  case, 
he  asked  about  the  pay  of  the  Seventeenth  Connecticut. 

"When  the  Government^  is  ready,  and  not  before,"  was 
the  curt  rejoinder  of  the  Captain's  officer. 

' '  But  how  much  is  due  them  ? ' '  demanded  Howe. 

* '  Thirty-one  thousand  dollars, ' '  came  the  reply. 

Penning  a  draft  for  this  sum,  Howe  secured  a  proper 
endorsement  and  paid  the  whole  thirty-one  thousand  dol- 
lars, later  going  up  to  receive,  on  the  level  with  his  fellows, 
but  twenty-eight  dollars  and  sixty  cents! 

Already  twice  a  millionaire,  with  hundreds  of  dollars  a 
day  and  hundreds  of  thousands  a  year,  he  left  all  to  face 
death  and  obey  the  ruling  passion  of  the  true  patriot.  It 
was  such  a  passion  as  we  have  already  seen  in  Artemas 
Ward  and  such  as  we  are  to  see  in  Dorothy  Dix  and  Clara 
Barton  and  Dr.  Morton  and  all  of  the  others,  and  which, 
as  in  the  case  of  the  Red  Cross  founder,  thus  answers  the 
self-propounded  question — a  question  whose  answer  is  in 
itself, — "What  is  money  if  I  have  no  country?" 


iln  the  meantime  the  Government  of  France  in  1867,  by  the  hand 
of  Emperor  Louis  III,  decorated  him  with  the  Cross  of  the  Legion 
of  Honor. 


WILLIAM  MORTON 

THE    CONQUEROR   OF   PAIN 

THE  sixteenth  of  October,  in  the  year  1846,  was  the 
immortal  day  when  first  was  proved  to  the  world 
insensibility  to  pain  through  ether. 

Up  to  that  hour  till  10.15  o'clock  on  that  day,  the  con- 
quest of  pain  remained  an  unsolved  mystery.  The  world 
knew  it  not.  Even  a  quarter  of  an  hour  before  that 
moment,  the  most  open-minded  place  in  the  world  to  har- 
bor the  hope,  the  surgical  amphitheatre  of  the  Massachu- 
setts General  Hospital,  filled  as  it  was  with  a  half-believing 
company  of  professional  surgeons  and  students,  broke  down 
at  the  audacity  of  the  claim  and  collapsed  in  a  burst  of 
laughter. 

The  patient  ready  to  test  it  lay  stretched  on  the 
amputating-table.  The  atmosphere  had  been  one  of  half- 
hearted incredulity,  hoping  against  hope.  Should  the  dis- 
coverer appear  as  he  had  promised  and  produce  insensi- 
bility. Dr.  John  C.  Warren,  the  most  distinguished  sur- 
geon, would  apply  the  knife.  If  the  claimant  did  not 
appear,  he  would  apply  it  in  the  old  way,  of  conscious  tor- 
ture. 

It  was  10  o  'clock — the  appointed  time ! 

It  was  10.05 ! 

It  was  10.10! 

It  was  10.15 — a  quarter  of  an  hour  past  the  time  for  the 
discoverer  to  walk  in  and  make  good  his  claim ! 

The  distrust  of  the  curious  and  doubting  became  conta- 
gious and  mastered  the  assemblage.     Even  the  courage  of 


90  MASTER    MINDS 

Dr.  Warren,  head  surgeon,  who  had  hoped  most,  began  to 
wane  as  the  clock  struck  the  quarter! 

Upon  the  wincing  and  conscious  victim  he  prepared  in 
the  old  way  to  insert  the  knife-blade  in  human  vivisection, 
saying  as  he  turned  around  before  he  raised  the  scalpel: 
' '  As  Dr.  ]\Iorton  has  not  arrived,  I  presume  he  is  otherwise 
engaged. ' ' 

It  was  at  this  remark  that  laughter  relieved  the  tension — 
the  knowing  laughter  that  intonates,  "I  told  you  so." 

Thereupon  the  claim  of  the  discoverer  became  a  joke  and 
his  name  a  mark  of  sarcasm. 

That  here  in  the  most  scientific  spot  in  the  new  world 
the  very  idea  became  a  matter  for  ridicule,  proved  how 
utterly  anaesthesia  had  not  only  been  unpracticed  but  un- 
discovered, unrecognized  and  unknown. 

The  conquest  of  pain  through  ether  was  as  yet  unbeliev- 
able. "Was  the  experiment  to  be  now  ignored  and  the 
claimant's  name  laughed  out  of  the  court  of  surgery? 

Just  then,  of  a  sudden,  a  side-door  opened.  There  strode 
in  a  young  man  of  twenty-seven,  no  older  than  many  of  the 
scoffing  students  in  the  gallery.  His  name  was  William  T. 
G.  Morton.  His  occupation,  men  w^hispered  one  to  another, 
was  simply  that  of  a  young  dentist  on  Tremont  Row. 
There  were  smiles  of  pity  and  contempt  in  the  overlying 
array  of  faces  that  were  not  assuring.  The  young  man 
looked  down  for  a  moment,  confused,  at  the  apparatus  he 
held  in  his  hand.  As  he  stood  still  he  heard  Dr.  Warren 
say — it  seemed  a  little  distantly : 

"Well,  sir,  your  patient  is  ready." 

Not  that  amphitheatre  only,  not  only  the  most  distin- 
guished surgeons  of  the  new  world,  but  all  time  to  come 
and  its  share  of  human  pain,  hung  upon  the  success  or  fail- 
ure of  the  next  few  moments.  In  the  figure  on  the  stretcher, 


f^    g 


WILLIAM     MORTON  91 

whose  neck  was  to  be  laid  open  and  a  tumor  removed,  lay 
represented  "the  whole  creation"  that  "groaneth  and 
travaileth  in  pain  together  until  now,"  till  a  fulfillment  of 
a  part  of  the  prophecy  at  least — "neither  shall  there  be 
any  more  pain. ' ' 

In  the  immediate  test  there  was  at  stake  also  the  ques- 
tion of  safety  or  fatality  to  the  patient's  life;  for  it  was  the 
imiversal  belief  up  to  this  moment  that  enough  ether  to 
stupefy  for  a  surgical  operation  would  kill  the  patient  if 
inbreathed. 

"Are  you  afraid?"  Dr.  Morton  inquired  of  the  sufferer. 

"No,"  replied  the  man,  who  had  turned  his  head  to  look 
at  a  Mr.  Frost,  a  patient  who  had  gone  through  a  private 
test  in  a  dental  operation,  and  whom  Dr.  Morton  had 
pointed  out  for  his  encouragement.  "  No ;  I  feel  confident, 
and  will  do  precisely  as  you  tell  me. ' ' 

In  the  breathless  silence  of  all,  Dr.  Morton  then  appUed 
the  tube  connected  with  the  ether  in  a  glass  globe. 

In  four  and  one-half  minutes  the  man  slept  like  a  child.^ 

The  demonstration  was  a  complete  victory.  Surprise 
mastered  the  human  terrace  of  witnesses  in  the  gallery,  who 
mutely  hung  over  the  backs  of  the  seats  and  pressed  far 
over  the  rails,  the  foremost  kneeling,  that  the  rest  could 
see. 

Repeating  the  head  surgeon's  challenge  to  him  of  five 
minutes  before.  Dr.  Morton  turned  and  said  modestly  but 
victoriously : 

"Dr.  Warren,  your  patient  is  ready,  sir." 

The  critical  operation  for  the  removal  of  a  tumor  in  the 
sufferer's  neek  was  then  performed  by  the  head  surgeon. 


iThis  scene,  depicted  in  Eobert  Hinckley's  painting,  hangs  in  the 
Medical  Library  on  the  Fenway,  Boston. 


92  MASTER    MINDS 

At  the  end,  as  the  patient  still  lay  immovable  like  a  log, 
Dr.  Warren  turned  to  the  circle  of  surgeons  and  the  erst- 
while mocking  gallery,  on  whose  faces  the  late  verdict  of 
"humbug"  lingered  still,  saying  to  them  solemnly: 

' '  Gentlemen,  this  is  no  humbug ! ' ' 

To-day,  looking  around  this  room,  which  is  the  birth- 
place of  pain's  demonstrated  conquest,  we  find  it  still  the 
same,  and  we  may  visit  it  this  hour,  in  the  Massachusetts 
General  Hospital,  as  one  of  the  great  birthplaces  of  history. 

Meanwhile,  the  patient,  whose  neck  in  the  operation  had 
been  opened,  declared  when  he  awoke : 

"I  have  experienced  no  pain,  only  a  scratching  like  the 
scraping  of  the  part  with  a  blunt  instrument. ' ' 

The  conviction  swept  over  all,  which  Dr.  Warren  later 
articulated  in  these  words : 

"A  new  era  has  opened  on  the  operating  surgeon.  His 
visitations  on  the  most  delicate  parts  are  performed  not 
only  without  the  agonizing  screams  he  has  been  accustomed 
to  hear,  but  sometimes  in  a  state  of  perfect  insensibility 
and  occasionally  even  with  an  expression  of  pleasure  on  the 
part  of  the  patient.  Who  would  have  imagined  that  draw- 
ing a  knife  over  the  delicate  skin  of  the  face  might  produce 
a  sensation  of  unmixed  delight?  That  the  turning  and 
twisting  of  instruments  in  the  most  sensitive  bladder  might 
be  accompanied  by  a  delightful  dream?  That  the  con- 
torting of  anchylosed  joints  should  coexist  with  a  celestial 
vision?  And  with  what  fresh  vigor  does  the  living  sur- 
geon, who  is  ready  to  resign  the  scalpel,  gi'asp  it  and  wish 
again  to  go  through  his  career  under  the  new  auspices  ? ' ' 

At  one  year's  end  the  trustees,  corporation  and  staff  of 
the  Massachusetts  General  added  these  words : 

* '  The  past  year  has  tested  the  unspeakable  importance  of 
the  recent  discovery  of  the  properties  of  sulphuric  acid, 


WILLIAM     MORTON  93 

no  less  than  one  hundred  and  thirty-two  operations,  many 
of  them  of  much  severity,  having-  been  already  performed 
with  entire  success  on  patients — insensible  through  its 
benipm  influence.  By  overcoming  all  muscular  and  ner- 
vous resistance,  it  has  extended  the  domain  of  surgery, 
making?  operations  possible  which  could  not  have  been  per- 
formed, and  which  could  not  have  been  attempted  without 
its  aid;  and  by  the  removal  of  the  fear  of  pain  it  has 
greatly  increased  the  actual  number  of  operations." 

With  these  first  words  may  well  go  this  last  word  of 
science,  being-  that  of  the  gifted  speaker^  in  1908  at  the 
anniversary  of  ''Ether  Day"  at  the  Massachusetts  General. 

"Ushered  in  by  the  discovery  of  vaccination  against 
smallpox  at  the  close  of  the  eighteenth  century,  the  greatest 
practical  achievements  in  our  art  during  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury were  anesthesia,  antiseptic  surgery,  and  the  power  to 
control  infectious  diseases  resulting  from  the  discovery  of 
their  living  contagia — achievements  surpassing  the  heritage 
of  all  the  centuries  which  had  gone  before  in  the  saving  of 
human  life  and  the  alleviation  of  suffering.  Of  those  gifts 
to  medicine  the  sweetest  and  the  happiest  is  the  death  to 
pain, ' ' 

' '  We  Have  Conquered  Pain  ! ' ' — so  read  the  head-lines 
of  the  press  all  over  America  and  far  into  Europe,  Asia 
and  the  islands  of  the  sea. 

Thence  till  to-day  the  balanced  verdict  of  science  has 
been  that  the  key  that  unlocked  the  chamber  of  painless 
surgery  was  found  by  Dr.  Morton.  ''Time  and  history  at 
last  place  the  honor,"  declares  Dr.  Mumford's  authorita- 
tive narrative  of  medicine  in  America,  ' '  where  it  belongs — 
with  Dr.  Morton." 


iWilliam  H.  Welch,  M.D.,  LL.D.,  of  Johns  Hopkins. 


94  MASTER    MINDS 

The  brilliant  \actorj^  over  suffering  here  recorded  is  as 
shining  a  turning-point,  next  to  the  Cross  itself,  as  ever 
gleamed  out  into  human  history.  But  this  victory,  too,  is 
bounded  by  sacrifice  on  two  sides — one  before,  one  after. 
On  the  one  side  before  it  stands  a  lonely  era  of  solitary 
experiment  in  the  desert  of  waiting;  and  on  the  other  side 
of  the  discovery,  it  is  bounded  by  two  decades  of  desertion, 
destitution  and  death. 

The  pages  of  the  pathos  of  progress  in  Morton's  life  are 
bordered  with  great  rubrics  of  suffering,  and  add  a 
signal  chapter  to  the  human  persecution  of  discoverers, 

''the  yoke  in  his  youth  " 

To  enable  the  discoverer  as  long  as  he  did  to  meet  these 
two  eras  of  loneliness  and  persecution,  it  was  a  good  thing, 
— a  providential  thing — that  the  Worcester  County  hill- 
town  of  Charlton  ingrained  into  him  constitution,  charac- 
ter and  courage — for  he  was  born  of  Charlton  ancestry 
Aug-ust  19th,  1819.  Here  he  learned  to  bear  "the  yoke  in 
his  youth. ' ' 

In  the  American  Revolution,  William  Morton's  great- 
grandfather served  under  the  martyr  of  Bunker  Hill, 
President  Joseph  Warren,  whose  nephew,  Dr.  Warren,  it 
was  who  performed  the  operation  for  this  very  man's 
great-grandson.  Dr.  William  Morton,  the  discoverer  of 
ether.  Thomas  Morton,  son  of  this  patriot,  was  killed  by 
falling  on  a  scythe  in  1759,  and  left  the  horror  of  his  death 
ever  preying  on  the  mind  of  James,  his  son,  from  whom, 
with  enmity  to  human  pain  thus  inbred,  came  in  1819  the 
victor  over  pain — William  Thomas  G.  Morton. 

By  the  time  William  was  bom,  his  father  had 
left    a    farm    in    Rhode    Island    and    returned     to     the 


WILLIAM     MORTON  95 

ancestral  ground  of  his  family  tree  at  Charlton, 
to  a  farm  of  one  himdred  acres,  clustering?  around 
a  lar^e  old-fashioned  farm-house  built  about  the 
old-style  chimney  as  the  centre-piece.  Climbinir-plants 
crept  from  the  background  of  woods  and  brooks  so  that 
they  almost  hid  the  outline  of  the  homestead.  Indoors  in 
winter  about  the  huge  fireplace,  over  which  hung  dried 
apples,  squashes  and  pumpkins,  were  the  cvistomary  com- 
forts of  a  gentleman  farmer  in  early  New  England.  Out- 
doors in  the  summer  were  the  season's  interests  of  sheep- 
shearing,  haying  and  husking,  until  winter  came  around 
again  with  milling,  carding  and  skating — ^to  be  followed  in 
turn  by  the  spring  tree-tapping  and  sugaring-off.  To  Wil- 
liam as  to  every  wholesome  boy  came  with  gusto  these 
variant  diversions  and  tasks  of  the  Yankee  lad. 

But  beyond  materinl  interests,  dearly  as  they  clustered 
about  the  homestead,  lay  those  of  mind  and  soul,  of  head 
and  heart.  To  these  all  else  should  be  sacrificed.  Hence,  the 
father  moved  from  this  homelike  spot  to  be  near  an  acad- 
emy for  his  children's  instruction.  At  thirteen  William 
went  to  Oxford  Academy,  where  he  was  under  the  same 
type  of  thorough  and  sterling  worthies  as  had  been  Clara 
Barton  and  other  master  minds  at  the  Commonwealth's 
heart.  After  a  short  course  at  Northfield  Academy,  he 
sought  the  famous  Leicester  Academy,  Here  he  became 
acquainted  with  a  Dr.  Pierce,  who  discouraged  the  boy's 
ambition,  which  had  come  to  be  a  passion,  to  become  a 
physician.  Too  deep  to  be  resisted,  however,  this  determi- 
nation which  the  Creator  himself  had  implanted  refused  to 
be  thus  torn  up  by  the  roots.^ 


iHis  master  passion  was  bom  with  him.     Nicknamed  "Doctor"  by 
Ms  playmates,  William,  while  in  kilts,  administered  elder-tree  vials 


96  MASTER    MINDS 

A  false  accusation  at  school,  for  a  fault  lie  never  did,  led 
him  to  break  with  the  Academy  and  leave  with  broken 
health. 

Yet  his  spirit  was  unbroken  and  his  self-education  as 
steady  as  ever,  notwithstanding  human  backing  seemed 
against  him.  This  was  shown,  for  instance,  by  his  explora- 
tion of  the  fields  over  which  he  roamed,  searching  for 
objects  of  mineral  science. 

When  William  was  seventeen  years  old,  his  father, 
James  Morton,  failed,  and  the  son  left  for  Boston  to  mend 
his  fortunes.  Though  in  a  Boston  publishing  house  with 
the  editor  of  the  Christian  Witness,  he  was  disappointed  at 
the  failure  to  get  time  for  self-education,  and  he  returned 
home.  ''Minding"  the  counter  of  his  father's  store,  which 
had  started  up  again  at  Charlton,  he  found  time  to  carry 
on  between  hours  his  cherished  study  and  self-culture. 

In  1840,  when  twenty-one  years  old,  he  heard  of 
the  new  science  of  dentistry.  It  was  rising  out  of 
the  old  day  of  ignorant  blundering  over  broken  crowns 
and  tampering  with  teeth  whose  roots  were  left  embedded 
in  the  jaw.  To  counteract  this,  the  American  Association 
of  Dental  Surgery,  founded  by  a  remnant  of  true  dental 
surgeons,  was  established  at  Baltimore. 

Its  shorter  course  offered  Morton  the  chance  that  medi- 
cine's curriculum  denied  him,  and  eighteen  months  he 
studied  the  elements  of  dentistry. 

In  1842  he  commenced  practicing  in  Boston.  Not  con- 
tent to  abide  by  the  present  stage  of  his  profession,  he  paid 
several  hundreds  of  dollars  to  experiment  in  the  scientific 
laboratory  of  a  Dr.  Keep.    One  investigation  led  to  another, 


and  bread  pills,  almost  putting  an  end  to  his  baby  sister  by  a  de- 
coction he  poured  down  her  throat. 


WILLIAM   MORTON  97 

and  in  the  steps  of  each  smaller  discovery  he  caught  sight 
of  a  larger. 

THE  STEPS  TO  THE  DISCOVERY 

Seeking  a  solder  that  would  not  leave  a  black  line  on  false 
teeth,  he  discovered  that  to  use  it  old  fangs  must  be 
removed.  The  pain  of  this  was  intense.  Great  numbers  of 
patients  came,  only  to  go  away. 

But  pain  must  be  removed  or  his  new  solder  would  prove 
useless. 

So  by  fidelity  to  this  little  step  of  soldering  false  teeth, 
he  was  led  face  to  face  with  the  quest  of  his  life — the  con- 
quest of  pain. 

Brandy  and  champagne  as  intoxicants,  opium  to  the  pro- 
portion of  ten  to  twelve  grains,  laudanum  to  the  proportion 
of  four  hundred  drops — all  these  he  tried,  even  extracting 
by  the  last  expedient  the  fangs  of  both  jaws  in  a  woman 
patient.  Yet  by  none  of  these  methods  did  he  realize  suc- 
cess.    Magnetism  likewise  failed,  as  did  the  others. 

Unfound  as  yet,  further  to  pursue  his  search,  he  entered 
the  Medical  College  in  Boston  to  study  during  his  spare 
hours  as  a  physician. 

In  March,  1844,  his  practice  having  reached  many  thou- 
sands a  year,  he  married  Elizabeth  Whitman  of  Farming- 
ton,  Conn. 

In  July  of  this  year,  while  filling  a  tooth  of  a  Miss  Par- 
rot of  Gloucester,  to  appease  her  great  pain  he  rubbed  sul- 
phuric ether  on  the  outside  of  the  jaw.  One  day,  in  the 
series  of  treatments  as  a  result  of  this  one  of  several  sit- 
tings, he  noted  the  parts  had  become  benumbed  through  the 
action  of  the  ether  on  the  outside. 

What  if  the  M^hole  system  could  thus  be  benumbed !  What 
an  insensibility  to  pain  might  result ! 
7 


98  MASTER    MINDS 

Inhaling'  a  little  ether  as  an  amusement,  or  as  a  curios- 
ity, for  its  intoxicating  effects,  had  been  kno\^^l ;  also  it  had 
been  used  for  its  medicinal  effects  in  easing  inflammation 
in  the  bronchial  passages.  But  could  it  be  inhaled  in  quan- 
tities enough  to  produce  complete  insensibility  to  the 
severest  pain  and  not  be  itself  dangerous  and  suicidal  ? 

The  answer  to  this  was  unknown.  No  one  had  tried  it. 
No  one  had  dared  try.  That  summer,  to  experiment,  he 
went  to  his  father-in-law's  house  in  Farmington.  His  ex- 
periments with  goldfish  and  insects  and  animals  did  not 
satisfactorily  answer  this  question,  but  left  it  open,  and 
his  gay  young  friends  made  him,  on  account  of  trying  the 
experiments,  a  butt  of  humor.  Even  his  wife  shared  the 
fun,  but  he  rebuked  her,  saying : 

"The  time  will  come,  my  dear,  when  I  will  banish  pain. 
I  shall  succeed.  There  must  be  some  way  of  deadening 
pain.  I  have  a  work  to  do  in  the  world,  Lizzie.  The  time 
will  come  when  I  will  do  away  with  pain. ' ' 

''Dr.  Morton,"  added  his  wife,  who  recounts  these 
moments,  ' '  was  one  of  those  tremendously  earnest  men  who 
believe  they  have  a  high  destiny  to  fulfill. ' ' 

On  his  return  to  Medical  School  he  faced  a  new  incentive 
to  make  the  discovery.  It  lay  in  the  operating-room,  the 
chamber  of  horrors  which  surgery  then  presented,  of  con- 
scious victims  writhing  in  awful  struggles  under  the  knife. 
This  circular  chamber  was  in  the  dome  of  the  Massachusetts 
General  Hospital,  placed  distant  from  the  wards  full  of 
patients,  that  they  might  not  hear  the  shrieks.  Here 
he  saw  three  or  four  strong  men  always  in  readiness  to  fall 
upon  a  sufferer  and  hold  him  down  to  the  torture.  Per- 
haps it  was  to  wrench  a  hip-joint  out  of  a  false  position  in 
order  to  replace  a  dislocation.  If  so,  he  saw  the  strong  men 
tie  a  rope  to  the  limb  of  the  patient,  then  all  fall  on  the 


WILLI  AM   MORTON  99 

line  and  heave  till  the  bones  left  the  socket.  Upon  the 
screaming  subject  he  watched  the  cords  tighten,  the  sinews 
crack,  the  beefy  men  hold  on,  and  the  sufferer  faint  before 
the  snap  back  into  the  socket. 

At  other  times  he  watched  the  knife's  edge  plunge  under 
a  conscious  gentlewoman's  skin  and  go  on  prodding  to  open 
the  flesh  while  she  remained  conscious,  till  her  staggering 
shrieks  and  acute  convulsions  again  demanded  the  body  of 
strong  men,  who  fell  upon  her  quivering  form  and  held  her 
down  till  she  swooned  away. 

Such  sights,  repeated  upon  the  vision  of  one  inheriting 
an  instinctive  dread  of  suffering,  could  but  fan  to  a 
flame  the  passion  in  his  mind  to  discover  a  deadener  of 
pain,  and  to  apply  to  the  whole  system  its  gracious  allevia- 
tion of  agony. 

In  the  meantime  his  profession  of  dentistry  in  his  ex- 
tended business  at  Tremont  Row  prospered  to  such  an  extent 
that  he  had  to  employ  a  number  of  assistant  dentists,  and 
his  income  by  1844  became  twenty  thousand  dollars  a  year. 
No  rest  was  the  result.  But  his  creative  energies  compelled 
him  to  proceed.  Minor  discoveries  were  continually  made. 
The  use  of  atmospheric  pressure  to  mould  the  shape  of 
the  teeth  and  overcome  harelip  added  to  his  fame,  as  did  a 
plant  for  the  manufacture  of  false  teeth  by  his  own 
process  by  pulverization  of  stone,  colored  with  oxalic  acid, 
and  then  loieaded,  moulded,  hardened,  agglutinated, 
enameled,  polished,  and  annealed. 

In  the  term  of  1844-45,  while  studying  medicine.  Dr. 
Morton  observed  the  exhibition  of  nitrous  oxide  gas  by  a 
brother  dentist.  Dr.  Horace  Wells  of  Hartford.  It  was  to 
be  demonstrated  before  the  staff  of  the  Massachusetts  Gen- 
eral Hospital  and  the  Medical  College  as  an  anodyne  for 
extracting  teeth  without  pain  to  a  patient.     But  it  failed 


100  MASTERMINDS 

utterly,  as  the  patient  shrieked  with  pain  and  the  students 
roared  with  laughter — even  hissing  their  disapproval.  It 
is  only  justice  to  Dr.  Wells  to  say  that,  for  extracting  teeth 
without  pain,  nitrous  oxide  became  successful,  and  by  1862 
was  generally  used. 

Yet  it  did  not  at  that  time  prove  efficacious,  even  in  pain 
in  a  tooth,  and  since  that  time  it  has  been  impossible  to  pro- 
duce with  it  insensibility  to  pain  in  surgery  proper. 

The  failure  only  spurred  on  Dr.  Morton  to  try  out  his 
specific — sulphuric  ether  by  inhalation. 

To  devote  himself  wholly  to  this  experiment,  Jime  30th, 
1846,  he  turned  over  his  business  of  twenty  thousand  dol- 
lars a  year  to  Dr.  Hayden,  his  assistant. 

Utterly  self- forgetful ;  regardless  of  man's  jealousy  of 
discoverers ;  caught  up  only  by  the  vision  of  relieving  a 
world's  suffering,  he  hesitated  not  a  moment,  but  took  the 
step  and  went  on. 

It  was,  as  we  have  seen,  the  general  belief  in  Morton's 
day  that  ether  in  use  sufficient  to  stupefy  the  system  would 
kill  the  patient,  and  no  man  dared  take  the  risk. 

Pereira,  in  his  medical  works,  then  in  general  use,  stated 
that  to  relieve  whooping-cough,  dyspepsia,  and  inflamma- 
tion in  the  bronchial  tubes,  ether  could  be  inhaled  if  mixed 
with  atmospheric  air — a  fact  discovered  in  England  in 
1812. 

Dr.  Morton  was  therefore  confronted  by  the  question — 
could  ether  be  inhaled  in  quantities  to  render  a  patient  in- 
sensible to  pain,  in  acute  operations,  without  killing  him? 
This  he  knew  had  never  been  discovered.  The  verdict  of 
the  books  and  times  concurred  in  saying  it  would  be  fatal. 

Velpean,  the  noted  French  surgeon,  thus  declared  the 
scientific  world's  latest  opinion  in  1839 :  ''To  escape  pain  in 
surgical  operations  is  a  chimera  which  we  are  not  permitted 


WILLIAM   MO  ETON  101 

to  look  for  in  our  day.  Knife  and  pain  in  surg^ery  are  two 
words  which  never  present  themselves,  the  one  without  the 
other,  in  the  minds  of  patients,  and  it  is  necessary  for  us 
surgeons  to  admit  their  association." 

This  noted  scientist  who  called  it  a  chimera  in  1839  was 
the  same  one  who,  after  the  discovery,  proclaimed  Dr.  Mor- 
ton's victory  "a  glorious  triumph  for  humanity." 

Yet  the  investigator  in  no  way  gave  up.  To  Dr.  Gould, 
an  assistant,  he  declared:  "I  will  have  some  way  yet  by 
which  I  shall  perform  my  operations  without  pain." 

In  June,  1846,  he  confided  to  his  other  assistant,  Dr.  Hay- 
den,  and  his  la^v;y'^er,  Richard  H.  Dana,  that  soon  he  "should 
have  his  patients  come  in  at  one  door,  have  all  their  teeth 
extracted  without  pain  and  without  knowing  it,  and  then, 
going  into  the  next  room,  have  a  full  set  put  in. ' ' 

To  get  some  one  to  take  ether  in  sufficient  quantity  to 
make  the  test  w^as  the  task.  No  one  would  do  it,  it  being 
thought  suicidal.  No  one  on  the  wharves,  among  the 
human  wharf -rats,  even  by  a  liberal  display  of  five-dollar 
bills,  could  be  bought  up  to  throw  away,  as  every  one 
believed,  his  life. 

Putting  a  combination  of  ether,  morphine  and  other  nar- 
cotics in  a  retort  surrounded  with  a  hot  towel,  Dr.  Morton 
himself  proceeded  to  inhale  it.  But  he  was  only  to  be 
rewarded  vsdth  a  furious  headache,  accompanied  by  a  slight 
numbness. 

"Nig,"  a  black  spaniel,  he  had  before  succeeded  in  ren- 
dering insensible. 

But  how  about  a  man  ? 

Dr.  Hay  den,  one  of  Dr.  Morton's  office  colleagues,  believ- 
ing it  fatal,  refused.  Spear,  another  associate,  consented, 
but  after  the  first  drowsiness  became  furious  and  violent, 
making  a  failure. 


102  MASTER     MINDS 

Analysis  revealed  that  the  ether  administered  was  chemi- 
cally impure, 

THE  FIRST  SUCCESSFUL  EXPERIMENTS 

With  pure  ether  he  now  decided  (though  not  without 
great  alarm  to  his  wife)  upon  an  experiment  upon  himself. 
Together  with  an  experienced  chemist,  Dr.  "Wightman,  he 
devised  a  glass  funnel  or  globe,  and  an  india-rubber  bag 
with  a  hole  cut  near  the  neck.  A  sponge  inserted  in  the 
glass  globe,  which  had  two  openings,  completed  the  inhal- 
ing instrument. 

September  30,  1846,  with  this  and  chemically  pure  ether, 
he  shut  himself  in  a  room  and  inbreathed  the  fumes. 

"Taking  the  tube  and  flask,"  he  recorded,  "I  shut  my- 
self in  my  room,  seated  myself  in  the  operating-chair  and 
commenced  inhaling.  I  found  the  ether  so  strong  that  it 
partially  suffocated  me,  but  produced  no  decided  effect.  I 
then  saturated  my  handkerchief  and  inhaled  it  from  that. 
I  looked  at  my  watch  and  soon  lost  consciousness.  As  I 
recovered  I  felt  a  numbness  in  my  limbs  with  a  sensation 
like  night-mare,  and  would  have  given  the  world  for  some 
one  to  come  and  arouse  me.  I  thought  for  a  moment  I 
should  die  in  that  state,  and  the  world  would  only  pity  or 
ridicule  me.  At  length  I  felt  a  tingle  of  the  blood  in  the 
end  of  my  third  finger,  and  made  an  effort  to  touch  it  with 
my  thumb,  but  without  success.  At  a  second  effort  I 
touched  it,  but  there  seemed  to  be  no  sensation.  I  grad- 
ually raised  my  arm  and  pinched  my  thigh,  but  I  could  see 
that  sensation  was  imperfect.  I  attempted  to  rise  from  my 
chair,  but  fell  back.  Gradually  I  regained  power  over  my 
limbs  and  full  consciousness.  I  immediately  looked  at  my 
watch  and  found  I  had  been  insensible  between  seven  and 
eight  minutes. 


WILLIAM   MORTON  103 

"Delighted  with  the  success  of  this  experiment,  I  imme- 
diately axinounced  tlie  result  to  the  persons  employed  in  my 
establishment,  and  waited  impatiently  for  some  one  upon 
whom  I  could  make  a  fuller  trial.  Toward  evening  a  man 
named  Eben  H.  Frost,  residinf?  in  Boston,  came  in,  suffer- 
ing great  pain,  and  wished  to  have  a  tooth  extracted.  He 
was  afraid  of  the  operation  and  asked  if  he  could  be  mes- 
merized. I  told  him  I  had  something  better,  and  saturat- 
ing my  handkerchief  gave  it  to  him  to  inhale.  He  became 
unconscious  almost  immediately.  It  was  dark  and  Dr. 
Hayden  held  the  lamp  while  I  extracted  a  firmly  rooted 
bi-cuspid  tooth.  He  recovered  in  a  minute  and  knew  noth- 
ing of  what  had  happened  to  him.  This  I  consider  to  be 
the  first  demonstration  of  this  new  fact  in  science.  I  have 
heard  of  no  one  else  who  can  prove  an  earlier  demonstra- 
tion. If  any  one  can  do  so,  I  yield  to  him  the  point  of 
priority  in  time."^ 

Numerous  other  experiments  followed  in  the  days  to  come 
and  public  notice  was  drawn  to  the  wonderful  new  ano- 
dyne. 

Scientists  like  Dr.  Heniy  J.  Bigelow  of  the  Massachusetts 
General  Hospital  came  in  to  observe,  and  at  once 
Dr.  Morton  decided  upon  a  public  demonstration  of  his 
discovery.     The  first  week  in  October,  to  obtain  a  chance  to 


lAfter  the  operation  Dr.  Morton  tried  the  man  asking,  "Are  you 
ready?"  "I  am  ready,"  said  the  man,  unconscious  it  had  been 
done.  "Well,  it  is  out  now."  "No?"  cried  the  man.  "Glory, 
Hallelujah!  " 

The  quoted  account  is  from  Dr.  Morton's  own  memorial  recovmt- 
ing  the  experiment  to  the  French  Academy  of  Arts  and  Sciences, 
which  awarded  him  the  Montyon  prize. — Of  other  European  states, 
Norway  and  Sweden  awarded  him.  the  Cross  of  the  Order  of  Wasa 
and  Kussia  the  Cross  of  the  Order  of  St.  Vladimir. 


104  MASTERMINDS 

demonstrate,  lie  called  upon  Dr.  John  Warren,  senior  sur- 
geon of  the  Massachusetts  General  Hospital,  The  call  was 
a  success,  and  Dr.  Warren  set  the  date  Friday,  ten  o  'clock, 
October  16,  1846. 

On  the  anxious  seat,  Morton  knew  the  possibilities  of  that 
hour  and  its  desperate  chances. 

He  knew  the  fatal  effects  of  ether  without  an  exact 
arrangement  to  in-mix  air  before  it  was  breathed  and  with- 
out the  device  to  carry  off  the  carbonic  acid  gas  exhaled. 
On  any  one  of  these  points,  to  say  nothing  of  the  possible 
intractability  of  the  patient,  hung  the  fateful  risks  of  the 
test. 

The  evening  before  till  two  in  the  morning  he  was 
assisted  by  his  wife,  who,  though  trying  to  dissuade  him 
lest,  if  unsuccessful,  he  be  convicted  of  manslaughter,  or  be 
the  prey  of  ridicule,  nevertheless  helped  him  design  valves 
in  the  inhaler  to  carry  off  the  vitiated  air.  Eight  hours 
after  came  the  hour  set  for  the  test.  But  the  instrument- 
maker  had  delayed  his  part  on  this  apparatus^  for  inhaling 
till  not  only  the  last  minute,  but  beyond.  This  was  the 
cause  of  Dr.  Morton's  hurried  and  late  appearance  after 
Dr.  Warren  had  decided  to  give  him  up. 

It  was  then  at  10.15  that  the  door  opened  upon  this  great 
act  in  the  tragedy  of  pain,  and  the  great  actor,  the  young 
dentist  of  twenty-seven,  William  T.  G.  Morton,  took  the 
centre  of  the  stage. 

When  he  came,  the  knife  was  lifted  to  go  on  in  the  old 
way.  When  he  left,  after  a  most  successful  operation,  the 
patient,  \nth  the  tumor  on  the  jaw  gone,  was  the  first  of 
millions  of  sufferers  to  say : 


iThis  may  be  seen  to-day  in  this  old  operating-room  of  the  Massa- 
chusetts General. 


Di!.  William  Moktox 
CoiKiueror  of  Pain 


WILLIAM   MORTON  105 

"I  have  felt  no  pain!" 

At  four  in  the  afternoon  the  weight  of  lifting  a  world's 
burden  of  pain  seemed  to  have  left  its  mark  upon  Morton's 
face  as  he  said  with  strange  sadness  to  his  Avife  when  he 
returned  home,  "Well,  dear,  I  succeeded." 

That  is  the  one  side  of  this  great  discoverer's  life,  the  side 
of  the  lonely  discoverer. 

It  was — Dr.  Morton  against  the  world. 

Now  we  are  to  look  at — the  world  against  Dr.  Morton. 

THE  WORLD  AGAINST  THE  DISCOVERER 

This  period  extends  from  October  16,  1846,  the  date  of 
the  demonstrated  discovery,  to  July  15,  1868,  the  date  of 
his  death.  It  is,  indeed,  an  era  of  desertion,  destitution 
and  death. 

Its  sphere  of  persecution  is  professional,  governmental, 
financial. 

It  started  with  the  professional  rivalry  and  jealousy  of 
the  dentists.  Hardly  had  the  great  news  of  the  discovery 
cheered  the  world  before  that  opposition,  which  is  always 
the  pathos  of  progress,  began. 

There  was  no  question  of  the  success  of  the  brilliant  dis- 
covery. 

October  17th,  the  day  after,  a  tumor  in  the  arm  of  a 
young  woman  was  removed  with  complete  success  without 
pain.  For  three  weeks  went  on  the  first  of  the  one  hundred 
and  thirty-two  operations,  all  equally  successful  as  they  fol- 
lowed one  after  another  in  the  next  year,  for  the  first  three 
months  of  which  Dr.  Morton  freely  taught  the  world,  in  the 
Massachusetts  General  Hospital,  to  administer  ether. 

Suddenly,  as  an  index  of  gathering  opposition,  a  halt 
was  demanded ! 


106  MASTER    MINDS 

It  demanded  he  suspend  the  operations  simply  because 
the  compound  of  the  ether  was  not  analytically  disclosed. 
Dr.  Morton  had  secreted  the  nature  of  the  drug  by  coloring 
it  bright  red,  but  he  now  at  once  disclosed  it,  offering  the 
free  use  of  his  discovery  to  hospitals,  reserving  compensa- 
tion only  from  private  practitioner's  use. 

Operations  went  on  and  the  ether  was  demanded  as 
before. 

A  crowning  test  was  the  case  of  a  man  cauterized  for  a 
disease  of  the  bones  of  the  spine.  Once  under  the  ether, 
hot  irons  at  white  heat  blackened  the  flesh  till  it  shriveled 
back,  unrolling  from  the  bared  spinal  column.  No  groan 
escaped  the  patient !  Not  a  prick  of  pain  was  felt !  Con- 
trasting the  impossibility  of  such  an  operation  without 
death  to  the  patient  under  the  old  treatment  but  a  few 
weeks  before,  the  whole  circle  of  surgeons  and  amphitheatre 
burst  into  a  tumult  of  applause. 

American  scholars  hailed  the  day  of  the  discovery.  They 
did  their  part  by  baptizing  it  with  the  name,  Anaesthesia. 
The  first  name,  proposed  and  preferred  by  the  discoverer, 
was  Letheon.  But  the  name  Anesthesia,  proposed  by  Dr. 
Oliver  Wendell  Holmes,  who  baptized  it  with  this  name 
November  2,  1846,  was  the  one  accepted. 

Dr.  Holmes^  baptized  the  discovery  with  these  words: 


lApril  2d,  1893,  Dr.  Holmes  wrote  E.  I.  Snell  for  his  luminous 
article  in  the  Century  of  August,   1894,  the  following  confirmation: 

' '  My  dear  Sir :  Few  persons  have  or  had  better  reasons  than  myself 
to  assert  the  claim  of  Dr.  Morton  to  the  introduction  of  artificial 
anaesthesia  into  surgical  practice.  ...  I  have  never  for  a  mo- 
ment hesitated  in  awarding  the  essential  credit  of  the  great  achieve- 
ment to  Dr.  Morton.  .  .  .  The  man  to  whom  the  world  owes  it  is 
Dr.   William   Thomas  Green   Morton. 

Yours  very  truly, 

O.  W.  Holmes." 


WILLI  AM    310  RT  ON  107 

"The  knife  is  searching  for  disease,  the  pulleys  are  drag- 
ging back  dislocated  limbs,  Nature  herself  is  working  out 
the  primal  curse  which  doomed  the  tenderest  of  her  crea- 
tures to  the  sharpest  of  her  trials,  but  the  fierce  extremity 
of  suffering  has  been  steeped  in  the  waters  of  forgetfulness 
and  the  deepest  furrow  in  the  knitted  brow  of  agony  has 
been  smoothed  forever." 

At  the  growing  news  of  the  success  of  the  discovery  arose 
a  host  of  claimants,  chief  among  whom  was  a  professional 
competitor  in  dentistry,  a  Dr.  Jackson  of  Boston. 

He  claimed  to  have  given  Dr.  Morton  the  general  idea  of 
ether  as  a  safe  means  of  insensibility  to  pain  September  28, 
1846. 

After  exhaustive  investigations,  the  summoning  of  wit- 
nesses on  both  sides  to  give  testimony  as  in  a  law  court,  and 
hearing  the  principals  themselves,  the  trustees  of  the  Mas- 
sachusetts General  Hospital,  a  board  of  twelve  gentlemen 
of  highest  standing  in  Boston,  reached  a  verdict — a  verdict 
which  unqualifiedly  gave  the  discovery  to  Dr.  Morton,  and 
laid  aside  as  utterly  unproven  the  claims  of  Dr.  Jackson. 
The  unanimous  report  in  which  this  verdict  confirmed  Dr. 
Morton's  discovery  was  issued  January  6,  1848. 

The  famous  Dr.  Bowditch  for  the  entire  staff  of  the  hos- 
pital followed  the  report  with  a  "Vindication"  of  the  ver- 
dict of  the  trustees.  Thus  the  combined  weight  of  all  pro- 
fessional evidence  was  thrown  on  tlie  side  of  Dr.  Morton. 

The  reports  of  trustees  and  the  staff  ended  with  this  con- 
clusion: "Dr.  Morton,  previous  to  Ids  interview  with  Dr. 
Jackson,  had  bought  sulphuric  acid,  and  was  concerned 
about  its  qualities,  especially  its  effects  when  inhaled,  for 
the  prevention  of  pain  in  dental  operation,  etc.;  in  other 
words,  that  Dr.  Morton  was  seeking  for  this  discovery  by 


108  MASTERMINDS 

means  of  this  agent  and  did  not  get  the  first  idea  of  using 
it  from  Dr.  Jackson.'' 

As  time  went  on,  the  hospital  staffs  of  New  York,  Phila- 
delphia and  elsewhere  confirmed  Dr.  Morton's  claim  as  the 
verdict  of  organized  science.^ 

Their  judgment  is  sustained  by  the  sifted  evidence  of 
science  to-day. 

Every  year  leading  scientists  and  surgeons  in  the  United 
States  gather  and  celebrate  the  birthday  of  the  discovery 
of  ether.  In  1908,  October  16th,  the  latest  verdict  of 
science,^  to  which  we  have  already  referred,  was  ably  voiced 
by  Dr.  William  H.  Welch,  M.  D.,  LL.D.,  chair  of  pathology, 
Johns  Hopkins  University,  Baltimore,  who  concluded : 

' '  I  deem  it,  however,  fitting  and  only  historical  justice  to 
say  that,  after  careful  study  of  the  evidence,  the  greater 
share  of  the  honor  belongs  to  Morton." 

Dr.  Welch  credited  to  the  fullest  possible  degree 
the  claims  of  Dr.  Crawford  W.  Long  of  Jeffer- 
son, Georgia,  who  asserted  he  had  removed  a  tumor 
in  1842  from  a  man  he  had  anresthetized  by  ether. 
He  also  credited  to  the  full  the  claims  of  Dr.  Jack- 
son, even  admitting  the  possibility  of  Jackson's  pre- 
vious conversations  as  to  "pure  ether,"  and  his  personal 
experiments  four  years  before.  Yet  what  he  decided  of 
Dr.  Jackson  he  in  these  words  decided  of  Dr.  Long:  "We 
cannot  assign  to  him  any  share  in  the  introduction  to  the 


i"The  great  thought  is  that  of  introducing  insensibility,  and  for 
that  the  world  is,  I  think,  indebted  to  you." — From  a  letter  of 
Nov.  17,  1847,  from  Sir  J.  ¥.  Simpson,  Edinburgh,  who  this  year 
(1847 )   discovered  chloroform  as  an  anaesthetic. 

2The  candid  and  able  address  before  referred  to  as  voicing  modem 
science  is  published  in  full  in  the  Boston  Medical  and  Surgical  Jour- 
nal, November  5,  1908, 


WILLIAM   MORTON  109 

world  at  large  of  the  blessings  of  this  matchless  discovery." 
''There  is  good  evidence  that  Morton,  while  reaching  out 
for  all  the  evidence  and  assistance  he  could  obtain  from  dif- 
ferent sources,  acted  independently  and  conducted  experi- 
ments and  tests  with  ether  upon  his  own  initiation  and  in 
accordance  with  his  own  ideas.  The  supposition  appears  to 
me  irreconcilable  with  the  facts  that  he  was  merely  a  hand 
to  execute  the  thoughts  of  Jackson,"  .  .  .  "The  glory 
belongs  to  Morton's  deed  in  demonstrating  publicly  and 
convincingly  the  applicability  of  antesthetic  inhalation  to 
surgical  purposes." 

But  Dr.  Jackson  refused  to  abide  by  the  Massachusetts 
General  tribunal  or  further  submit  his  case. 

Henceforward  he  became  chief  of  a  number  of  con- 
spirators against  Dr.  Morton  in  a  train  of  attacks  which 
do  not  close  till  Dr.  Morton  drops  dead  of  heart  disease  in 
New  York,  some  twenty  years  later. 

Not  merely  individuals,  but  organizations  of  dentists, 
opposed  him  and  adopted  systematized  opposition  to  the 
use  of  ether  and  bitterly  attacked  Dr.  Morton,  planning  to 
prosecute  whomsoever  used  it. 

The  loss  professionally  to  Dr.  Morton's  practice,  which 
had  amounted  to  so  many  thousands  a  year,  was  complete. 
Coupled  with  his  ha\ang  left  it  to  his  assistant,  to  whom 
he  turned  it  over  in  order  to  prosecute  and  perfect  his  dis- 
covery, this  professional  persecution  did  much  in  time  to 
decrease  the  number  of  patients.  Between  1847-1858, 
counting  the  amount  he  expended  for  the  laboratory  and 
apparatus  needed  for  the  discovery,  and  the  loss  of  income, 
he  sacrificed  one  hundred  and  eighty-seven  thousand  dollars. 

In  1848,  while  yet  in  his  twenties,  being  twenty-nine,  as 
he  was  brooking  the  professional  opposition  which  broke 
upon  him,  he  sustained  an  even  heavier  loss — that  of  his 


110  MASTER     MINDS 

health.  This  now  collapsed  under  attacks  of  neuralgia, 
whose  needle-like  prickings  left  him  trembling  and 
despondent.  The  breathing  of  ether  fumes,  necessary  in 
the  process  of  the  discovery,  had  undermined  his  powers  of 
resistance  to  this  attack  and  found  him  ill  prepared  to 
fight  it. 

The  other  claimants  to  the  discovery  arose  and  claimed 
they  had  used  it  even  as  far  south  as  Georgia.  But  none 
had  used  it  with  effect  in  cases  as  severe  as  surgical  opera- 
tions, and  indeed  had  they  used  it  at  all,  could  summon  no 
satisfactory  evidence,  could  record  no  satisfactory  demon- 
stration, could  point  to  no  public  reception  and  practice  in 
any  section  of  the  country. 

Among  these  claims  was  that  for  Dr.  Horace  Wells 
of  Hartford,  whose  demonstration  of  nitrous  oxide  gas  for 
killing  pain  in  the  extraction  of  a  tooth  had  resulted  in  a 
total  failure.  The  claim  was  that,  notwithstanding  he  used 
a  different  drug,  and  that  even  for  a  tooth  its  demonstra- 
tion was  a  failure,  yet  Dr.  IMorton  got  his  idea  from  him. 

Slight  and  immaterial  as  they  were,  the  real  evil  result 
of  these  false  claimants  now  becomes  apparent.  They 
became  obstructionists.  They  blocked  the  Government's 
compensation  of  Dr.  Morton's  discovery,  and  for  fourteen 
years  they  pulled  the  wires  of  politics  in  their  own  sections 
to  prevent  his  claim  being  passed  by  Congress. 

Dr.  Morton's  patent  to  exclusive  right  was  applied  for 
October  27,  1846,  and  was  issued  November  12,  1846,  and 
signed  by  the  Secretary  of  State.  Its  terms  gave  him 
sixty-five  per  cent,  of  the  net  profits  for  a  term  of  fourteen 
years.^ 


lAt  first,  told   by  the  Patent  Office  that  any   person  joining   even 
slightly  in   the   discovery  must  join  in  the  application,   and   frankly 


WILLI  AM   MORTON  111 

Either  help  must  be  had  from  the  Government  as  com- 
pensation for  his  one  hundred  and  eierhty-seven  thousand 
dollai-s  expended  and  lost  as  a  sacrifice  to  his  ether  discov- 
eiy,  or  Dr.  Morton  would  find  himself  in  beggary  and  no 
roof  over  his  family's  head.  It  wa.s  for  this,  not  for  mer- 
cenaiy  reasons  or  greed,  that  he  decided  to  ask  the  Govern- 
ment to  compensate  him. 

The  patent  the  Government  in  the  Mexican  Wai-  itself 
broke,  and  allowed  to  be  broken  everywhere.  Hence  there 
was  to  be  no  recompense  from  royalties.  Yet  Dr.  Morton 
refused  to  bring  suit.  He  had  originally  issued  the  patent, 
chiefly  to  keep  unauthorized  people  from  misusing  his  dis- 
covery and  so  throw  it  into  disuse  and  public  disfavor.  As 
the  patent  was  now,  however,  everywhere  broken,  he  no 
longer  cared  to  prosecute  its  infringement.  All  that 
remained  was  to  secure  sufficient  compensation  for  his  debt 
to  keep  his  home  from  the  auctioneer's  hammer,  his  prac- 
tice from  being  trusteed  and  himself  from  bankruptcy  and 
writs  of  execution. 

But  this  compensation  was  never  to  come ! 

For  fourteen  years,  hounded  by  creditors,  and  pursued 
by  counter-claimants,  he  sought  at  the  doors  of  Congress 
by  bills  and  memorials  to  cover  the  debt  he  had  contracted 
in  the  discovery. 

He  sought  justice. 

But  "republics  are  ungrateful."  For  no  less  than 
six     Congressional     committees    admitted    his    claim,     or 


admitting  his  conversation  with  Dr.  Jackson,  Dr.  Morton  was  advised 
by  Commissioner  of  Patents  Eddy  to  include  Jackson's  name  in  the 
application.  Later,  looking  over  the  evidence,  the  Commissioner 
rescinded  his  decision  on  the  ground  that  he  had  overrated  Jackson's 
grounds  for  joining  in  the  discovery.  He  thereupon  granted  the 
exclusive  right  to  Dr.  Morton.    . 


112  MASTER    31 INDS 

refused  to  admit  the  claim  of  any  other  to  the  discovery  of 
ether.  Yet  for  selfish  reasons,  and  on  account  of  sectional 
political  pressure  from  the  re^ons  of  other  claimants,  each 
Congress  held  back  the  vote  of  the  appropriation  he  asked. 
Kept  on  the  balance-rock  of  expectancy  and  disappoint- 
ment for  fourteen  years,  Morton  was  encouraged  to  go  to 
Congress  each  time  right  up  to  the  brink  of  a  passed  bill. 
Then  at  the  last  moment,  after  even  the  Congressional  com- 
mittee in  almost  every  case  had  voted  for  it  by  majority 
report,  he  had  to  see  it  referred  or  laid  over ! 

Thus  acted  the  Twenty-eighth  Congress  on  the  vote  of  a 
select  committee  in  the  second  session;  the  Thirty- 
second  Congress  on  the  majority  report  of  the  Naval  Com- 
mittee of  the  House  of  Representatives;  the  Thirty-second 
Congress  on  the  majority  report  of  the  Military  Committee 
of  the  Senate ;  the  Thirty-second  Congress  on  the  majority 
report  of  the  Naval  Committee  of  the  Senate  (second  ses- 
sion) ;  the  Thirty-second  Congress  on  the  majority  report 
of  the  Select  Committee  of  the  House  of  Representatives 
(first  session),  and  the  Thirty-seventh  Congress  on  the 
majority  report  of  the  Militaiy  Committee  of  the  Senate 
(third  session). 

Bandied  about,  referred  back  and  forth,  the  bill  or 
memorial,  though  always  voted  by  majority  reports  of 
committees,  became  the  football  of  Congress,  but  one  never 
to  reach  the  goal. 

No  man  of  like  deserts  was  ever  grilled  on  a  Govern- 
mental gridiron  for  so  long  a  time  or  grueled  to  such  pro- 
longed and  excruciating  mental  torture.  He  was  again 
and  again  held  off,  but  kept  on  dragging  his  worn  form  to 
Congress,  enthused  to  try  again  and  again  by  the  highest 
scientific  backing  of  all  the  United  States  as  led  by  Boston 
and  New  York  hospital  staffs. 


WILLIAM   MORTON  113 

In  1854  Daniel  "Webster  wrote  him  as  follows : 

WAsniNGTON,  December  20,  1851. 
Db.  W.  T.  G.  Morton. 

Dear  Sir:  In  reply  to  your  letter  of  the  17th  instant,  I  would  say, 
having  been  called  on  a  previous  occasion  to  examine  the  question 
of  the  discovery  of  the  application  of  ether  in  surgical  operations, 
I  then  forwarded  the  opinion,  which  I  have  since  seen  no  reason  to 
change,  that  the  merit  of  that  great  discovery  belonged  to  you,  and 
I  had  supposed  that  the  reports  of  the  trustees  of  the  hospital  and 
of  the  committee  of  the  House  of  Eepresentatives  of  the  United 
States  were  conclusive  on  this  point. 

The  gentlemen  connected  with  the  hospital  were  well  known  to  me 
as  of  the  highest  character,  and  they  possessed  at  the  time  of  the 
investigation  every  faculty  for  ascertaining  all  the  facts  in  the  case. 

The  committee  of  the  House  were,  I  believe,  unanimous  in  accord- 
ing to  you  the  merit  of  having  made  the  first  practical  application  of 
ether,  and  a  majority  of  their  report  accorded  to  you  the  entire 
credit  of  the  discovery. ' 

Very  respectfully  your  obedient  servant, 

Daniel  Webster. 

Rufiis  Choate,  Charles  Sumner  and  Edward  Everett 
decided  upon  the  same  conclusion  with  like  arguments — ^but 
in  vain. 

After  the  second  application  and  its  issue  was  lost,  Mor- 
ton, dispirited  and  crushed,  left  for  home  to  become  prey  to 
a  severe  illness,  and  for  thirty  days  hovered  between  life 
and  death.  But  this  was  just  the  beginning.  Year  after 
year,  as  his  fight  for  his  rights  went  on,  he  was  to  receive  a 
like  crushing  blow  by  four  more  congresses. 

The  defense  of  his  discovery  from  false  claimants  was 
practically  settled,  the  committees  of  Congress,  in  agree- 
ment with  the  best  scientific  verdict  of  the  country,  always 
voting  by  a  good  majority  the  discovery  as  his.  The  halt- 
ing-point of  Congress  was  the  request  for  a  compensation 
for  the  money  he  had  drawn  from  his  business  to  put  in  his 
8 


114  MASTERMINDS 

discovery.  For  this,  however,  he  had  to  fight  on  because, 
behind  his  back,  threatening  him  and  getting  yearly  more 
and  more  pressing,  were  debt  and  the  assault  of  the  ever- 
increasing  army  of  creditors. 

Arriving  at  his  office  one  day,  he  found  that  his  enemies 
and  his  creditors  had  spread  the  report  of  his  great  outlay 
and  his  consequent  slowness  to  pay.  This  instigated  a 
' '  run. ' '  While  he  was  away,  they  stole  his  books,  took  the 
names  of  all  his  patients,  and  sent  them  dunning  bills,  also 
trusteeing  their  salaries  in  case  of  non-payment.  These 
notes  were  sent  to  not  only  patients  who  had  not  paid,  but 
to  those  who  had.  On  his  return,  offended  numbers  of  his 
former  patients  met  him  with  cold  stares,  and,  thinking  he 
had  sent  the  bills,  refused  to  speak  to  him,  and  cut  off  their 
patronage.  His  health,  already  broken,  grew  worse.  More 
and  more  harassed  in  his  practice,  in  1853  he  retired  from 
it  altogether. 

But  the  inquisition  was  not  ^'et  over. 

It  was  now  to  make  its  home-thrust  nearest  the  heart. 

At  Wellesley,  Massachusetts  (then  West  Needham), 
twenty  miles  from  Boston,  Dr.  Morton  had  established 
his  home.  By  arboriculture  and  landscape  gardening, 
transforming  abandoned  farms,  he  made  the  wooded  knoll 
on  which  his  house  stood  the  centre  of  an  estate  of  pastoral 
charm  and  quietude.  Cultivating  the  trees  and  shrubs 
about  it.  he  left  a  perspective  looking  from  the  knolls  far 
away  across  to  the  village  church  in  the  distance.  Close 
by  was  the  little  cottage  near  which  he  had  chosen  for  the 
last  living  resting-place  of  his  white-haired  parents. 

But  even  here  invaded  his  persecutors,  and,  returning  one 
day,  he  found  his  wife  and  children  had  retreated  to  the 
nursery  and  locked  the  doors,  owing  to  a  strange  man  who 
had  forced  his  way  in  and  seated  himself  in  the  parlor.    He 


WILLIAM   MORTON  115 

was  a  man  Avho  had  come  to  act  as  "keeper"  and  to  attach 
the  house  and  everythint?  in  it! 

But  all,  all,  had  to  go.  Even  this  Morton  had  to  admit 
to  his  wife. 

To  Washington  and  home  again,  and  back  again  to  Wash- 
ington, he  began  now  his  desperate  journey  as  his  last 
resort. 

The  stock  left  on  the  farm  he  sold  and  leased  the  estate 
itself  for  five  hundred  dollars. 

His  previous  cabinet  of  instruments  and  scientific  appa- 
ratus he  put  in  pledge  for  two  thousand  dollars.  He  then 
fell  ill  again  \Wth  an  alarming  attack. 

At  this  juncture  he  was  kept  fourteen  months  waiting 
for  the  Government's  decision.  It  ended  as  before,  with- 
out result,  and  he  now  gave  up  all  hope. 

Nearly  beside  himself,  he  decided  to  return  for  the  last 
time  from  Washington  and  face  his  creditors. 

Attachments  were  raced  upon  him.  Execution  writs  and 
sales  rapidly  succeeded  one  another.  Matters  grew  worse 
and  worse.  At  length  his  family  and  little  ones  were  hooted 
on  the  streets.  Worst  of  all,  his  aged  parents  he  had  to  tell 
to  get  out  of  their  cottage. 

"The  discovery,  indeed,"  as  Dr.  Morton's  son.  Dr.  Wil- 
liam James  Morton,  has  said,  "while  a  boon  to  the  world, 
was  a  tragedy  to  its  author  and  his  family. ' ' 

To  keep  off  actual  starvation.  Dr.  Morton  looked  around 
for  what  was  left,  and  saw  a  load  of  wood  on  his  wood- 
pile. It  is,  indeed,  easier  to  freeze  than  to  starve.  He 
therefore  piled  the  wood  on  a  cart,  carried  it  to  a  baker  and 
exchanged  it  for  one-half  a  barrel  of  biscuit. 

In  1857  Boston  friends,  headed  by  Amos  Lawrence, 
issued  an  "Appeal  to  the  Patrons  of  Science  and  the 
Friends  of  Humanity."     The  Massachusetts  General  Hos- 


116  MASTEB    MINDS 

pital  had  already  in  1848  presented  Morton  as  a  memorial 
a  silver  casket  in  which  was  one  thousand  dollars,  and  on 
which  was  written,  "He  has  become  poor  in  a  cause  which 
has  made  the  world  its  debtor." 

It  was  sijsrned  by  the  noble  and  g-reat  of  the  day,  and  con- 
firmed by  the  sio^atures  of  the  staffs  of  the  great  hospitals 
in  Boston,  New  York,  Brooklyn  and  other  cities. 

Thus  buoyed  up  by  the  best  in  the  land,  he  lived  till  ten 
years  later,  when  he  was  stricken  with  an  apoplectic  shock 
July  15,  1868,  while  driving  with  his  wife  in  New  York, 
aged  only  forty-eight.^  At  St.  Luke's  Hospital,  whither  at 
midnight  he  was  carried,  the  chief  surgeon  gave  one  look, 
turned  to  some  students,  and  declared:  "Young  gentlemen, 
you  see  lying  before  you  a  man  who  has  done  more  for 
humanity  and  for  the  relief  of  suffering  than  any  other 
man  who  has  ever  lived. ' ' 

Besides  the  monument  in  Boston  Public  Garden  in  com- 
memoration of  the  discovery  is  the  monument  over  Dr. 
Morton's  grave  in  Mt.  Auburn  Cemetery,  erected  by  the 
people  of  Boston  and  thus  inscribed : 

William  T.  G.  Morton 

Inventor  and  revealer  of  Anaesthetic  inhalation 
Before  whom,  in  all  time,  surgery  was  agony 
By  whom  pain  in  surgery  was  averted  and  annulled 
Since  whom  science  has  control  op  pain. 


lA  keen  touch  of  pathos  is  added  to  this  event  by  the  fact  that 
Dr.  Morton  had  left  his  Massachusetts  home  to  go  to  New  York  to 
reply  to  an  attack  on  his  discovery  by  Dr.  Jackson — this  stroke, 
therefore,  being  the  last  in  the  train  of  all  the  others  literally  to 
kill  him. 


WILLIAM   MORTON  117 

Up  to  his  death,  instead  of  beinp^  embittered,  he  main- 
tained his  interest  in  humanity  and  his  love  of  country  and 
of  the  race,  as  was  shown  by  his  visits  to  the  fierce  fields  of 
the  Battles  of  the  Wilderness  in  the  Civil  War,  whose  hun- 
dreds of  thousands  of  wounded  in  this  and  other  campaigns 
of  that  war  lapsed  from  desperate  pain  into  gracious  insen- 
sibility through  the  discovery  he  had  made.  Here,  broken 
in  health  as  he  was,  to  prepare  wounded  patients  for  the 
knife,  before  the  operators  followed  and  the  dressers  bound 
up  the  stumps,  he  produced  perfect  ancesthesia  in  a  few 
seconds  and  became  a  volunteer  surgeon.  It  came  about  in 
this  way : 

The  time  was  the  early  summer  of  1864, — the  place  the 
Wilderness  of  Virginia.  An  aide  approached  headquarters 
and  announced  that  a  civilian  doctor  wished  to  obtain  an 
ambulance  for  visiting  field-hospitals. 

* '  The  ambulances  are  only  for  the  sick  and  wounded,  and 
under  no  circumstances  can  be  taken  for  private  use, ' '  was 
the  curt  reply  of  General  Grant. 

Dr.  Brinton,  who  was  on  Grant's  staff  of  surgeons,  sought 
the  applicant  and  found  him  a  broken,  travel-stained  man 
in  a  sadly  worn  suit  of  brown  clothes.  Discovering  his 
identity.  Dr.  Bnnton  returned  to  General  Grant  and 
repeated  the  aide's  request,  but  elicited  only  the  same  curt 
answer. 

"But,  General,  if  you  knew  who  that  man  was  I  think 
you  would  give  him  what  he  asks  for. ' ' 

"I  will  not  divert  an  ambulance  to-day  for  any  one. 
They  are  all  required  elsewhere." 

"General,  I  am  sure  you  will  give  him  the  wagon ;  he  has 
done  so  much  for  mankind,  so  much  for  the  soldier,  more 
than  any  soldier  or  civilian  has  ever  done  before,  and  you 
will  say  so  when  you  know  his  name. ' ' 


118  MASTERMINDS 

General  Grant  took  his  cigar  from  his  mouth,  poised  it 
between  his  fingers,  looked  curiously  at  the  applicant  and 
asked,  "Who  is  he?" 

"  He  is  Dr.  Morton,  the  discoverer  of  ether. ' ' 

Pausing  a  moment.  Grant  weighed  his  words  and 
declared : 

"You  are  right,  Doctor.  He  has  done  more  for  the  sol- 
dier than  any  one  else,  soldier  or  civilian,  for  he  has  taught 
you  all  to  banish  pain.  Let  him  have  the  ambulance  and 
anything  else  he  wants ! ' ' 


DOPCITHY    LYNDE    DIX 

Ki'dciiiiitrcss  of  the  WorM's   Insane 


DOROTHY  DIX 

REDEMPTRESS  OF  THE  WORLD'S  INSANE 


OVER  the  central  portal  of  Memorial  Hall  at  Harvard 
University  is  set  a  stand  of  the  United  States 
National  colors. 

What  patriot  do  they  commemorate?  What  heroic  act? 
What  dear-won  victory?  What  blood-bought  cause? 
Not  that  of  a  hero,  but  a  heroine;  not  that  of  a  soldier, 
but  a  saint;  not  that  of  a  fighting  man  in  uniform,  but  of 
an  American  unveiled  Sister  of  Mercy — Dorothy  Lynde 
Dix. 

As  a  testimonial  of  that  which  she  had  done  as  it  cul- 
minated in  her  acts  of  mercy  in  the  Civil  War,  what 
sliould  it  be?  Should  it  be  by  Congressional  vote  a  for- 
tune of  many  thousands  of  dollars  ?  Or,  as  tendered  by  the 
War  Cabinet  at  Washington,  should  it  be  the  ovation  of  a 
national  mass  meeting?  Which,  asked  the  Cabinet, 
did  she  prefer  ? 

"Neither!" 

"What,  then?" 

"The  flags  of  my  country"  were  all  she  asked,  and  of 
such  are  the  flags  at  Harvard. 

Signal  as  is  the  distinction  of  this  memorial  to  Dorothy 
Dix,  under  which  daily  troop  thousands  of  the  country's 
best  young  blood  and  which,  though  that  of  a  woman, 
heads  the  sacred  mementoes  in  that  hall  of  fame  dedicated 


120  MASTERMINDS 

to  the  quick  and  the  dead,  it  stands  second  to  far  greater 
memorials — memorials  unspeakably  grander  than  even 
this.  Built  by  her  work,  thirty  and  two  memorials  (now 
grown  to  over  three  hundred)  she  saw  rear  their  roof- 
trees  throughout  the  length  and  breadth  of  the  Union. 
Twice  did  they  break  over  the  line  into  Canada.  Carried 
by  her.  they  crossed  the  Atlantic  to  more  than  one  great 
pile  in  England  and  Scotland.  The  Pacific  they  were  to 
cross  in  time,  even  to  far-away  Japan.  Under  the  shadow 
of  the  Vatican,  through  her  plea,  they  became  entrenched 
in  the  "Eternal  City"  of  Rome. 

Just  what  are  these  memorials?  They  are  none  other 
than  the  colossal  hospitals  for  the  world's  insane.  These 
hospitals  when  as  yet  they  were  not,  this  little  woman,  an 
invalid,  broken  in  body,  alone  and  unattended,  founded 
and  promoted.  To  use  her  own  title  to  her  task, 
her  life's  masterpiece  lay  in  her  career  as  "Champion  and 
Challenger  of  the  Insane. ' ' 

Doubly  well  do  those  colors  dedicated  to  Dorothy  Dix 
stand  over  the  vestibule  of  a  temple  largely  dedicated  to 
fighters ;  for  the  entire  life  of  this  frail  lady  in  grey  was 
a  fight  from  first  to  finish.  And  of  the  truly  great, 
whether  men  or  women,  is  there  any  life  worth  remember- 
ing where  it  has  not  been  so?  Differepces  bridged  are 
the  pontoons  to  success.  And  across  this  bridge  have 
walked  all  the  immortals.  Weak  characters  evade  these 
differences.  Merely  strong  characters  quarrel  with  them. 
But  great  characters  use  them  as  the  way  to  triumphs  they 
could  never  have  achieved  had  it  not  been  for  such  differ- 
ences thus  bridged. 

"The  tonic  I  need,"  once  said  Dorothy  Dix  when  laid 
low  by  sickness,  "is  the  tonic  of  opposition.  It  always 
sets  me  on  my  feet." 


DOROTHY   DIX  121 

HER  DIFFERENCE  WITH  HER  HOME  AND  HER  IMPULSE  FOR  AN 
EDUCATION 

Of  this  tonic  there  was  plenty.  Her  first  difference  was 
with  her  home.  "I  never  knew  childhood,"  was  her  ver- 
dict upon  the  usual  care-free  age  of  from  one  to  twelve. 
She  was  born  in  Hampden,  Maine,  in  the  year  1802.^ 

Concerning  her  father's  household,  her  heart  never,  it 
is  true,  registered  anything  but  an  aching  void.  In  it  was 
desperation.  Yet  desperation  proves  a  form  of  inspira- 
tion if  instead  of  to  things  wicked  and  small  it  drives 
to  things  worthy  and  great. 

In  the  city  of  Worcester,  where  her  father  moved 
soon  after  her  birth,  such  was  her  keen  mind  that 
before  twelve  she  perceived  her  home  but  a  sinking  ship 
to  which  she  was  tied  down,  together  with  her  father, 


iMueh  question  has  existed  as  to  the  place  and  time  of  Miss  Dix's 
birth,  an  event  about  which  she  was  always  reticent.  But  whatever 
certainty  has  existed  is  dispelled  by  the  birth  records  given  in  the 
following  letter  to  the  author: 

Hampden,  Maine, 
Sept.  21st,  1909. 

Dear  Sir:  Your  letter  of  the  20th  at  hand,  and  have  in  my  pos- 
session the  tovra  records  of  Hampden,  marked  on  edge  of  outside 
cover  dated  1792,  and  in  tracing  the  book  along  to  record  of  births 
came  across  the  following  word  for  word  and  a  true  copy: 

' '  Joseph  Dix  and  his  ""«  Mary  their  children  Born.  Dorothy 
Lynde  their  daughter  Borne  April  the  4th,   1802." 

Have  shown  your  letter  to  the  following  persons,  who  have  seen 
the  records,  and  swear  to  its  being  correct: 

J.  L.  Miller, 

Mrs.  Ella  E.  Rowe, 

E.  H.  Eowell,  Town  Clerk. 

Arthur  W.  Braithwaite, 
Postmaster. 


122  MASTER    MINDS 

Joseph  Dix,  already  up  to  the  arm-pits  in  debt,  her  mother 
a  hopeless  invalid,  and  her  brothers,  doomed  with  her  to  a 
life  of  dependence,  poverty  and  ignorance.  So  absorbed 
was  the  head  of  the  family  with  his  habit  of  peddling  tracts 
which  he  kept  Dorothy  home  to  sew,  that  the  education  of 
his  family,  the  bills  of  his  creditors,  the  health  of  his  wife, — 
all  had  to  be  sacrificed.  Ignorance  and  the  poor-house, 
towards  which  they  were  tending,  stung  Dorothy's  little 
soul  and  goaded  her  spirit  to  shake  itself  free,  escape, 
run  away,  be  educated,  then  return  to  the  sinking  ship 
and  save  all  that  she  could!  Such  w^as  the  moving 
impulse  under  which  she  acted.  That  conditions  were 
such  she  had  to  do  so  was  always  an  open  wound. 

As  to  others  disgruntled  with  home  life  and  anxious  to 
imitate  the  form  and  not  the  spirit  of  her  action,  Dorothy 
Dix  punctuates  their  folly  with  a  full  stop,  begging  them 
to  love  a  home  and  make  one. 

**No!  Let  them  fall  in  love,  marry  and  preside  over  a 
home.     It  will  be  a  thousand  times  better  for  them." 

In  the  home  she  left  to  return  later  to  save,  Joseph  Dix, 
Dorothy's  father,  had,  by  the  time  the  girl  was  twelve, 
already  since  her  birth  been  through  more  than  "the 
three  moves"  which  Benjamin  Franklin  has  said  are  as 
bad  as  fire.  He  had  by  1814  little  but  his  pack  of  tracts 
over  which  the  child  was  constantly  bending  to  stitch  and 
paste. 

At  the  mysterious  age  of  change  between  twelve  and 
thirteen,  when  the  Head  of  Humanity  himself  felt  the 
driving  instinct  which  made  him  run  away  from  home 
ties  and  be  about  "his  Father's  business,"  she,  too,  felt 
that  first  stirring  of  a  divine  impulse  and  also  fled  away. 
Her  landing-place  was  likewise  a  temple  of  Truth,  a 
place  for  hearing  teachers  and  asking  them  questions. 


DOROTHY   DIX  123 

The  Boston  home  of  her  grandfather,  Dr.  Elijah  Dix, 
•  was  still  held  by  her  grandmother,  a  veritable  Puritan, 
whose  home,  mentally  speaking,  was  an  arsenal  of  Crom- 
wellian  misvsiles.  Hither  Dorothy  turned  her  steps. 
Dame  Dix  received  her  to  the  mental  and  moral  rigors  of 
her  training.  The  sword  was  not  too  sharp  for  the  scab- 
bard. For  it  Dorothy's  hungry',  starved  mind  was 
ready.  Iron  hit  iron.  Skipping  one  generation  the  metal 
of  Elijah  Dix's  moral  and  mental  constitution  was 
repeated  in  the  grandchild. 

There  was  no  doubt  about  its  existing  in  her  grand- 
father. Years  before,  while  Elijah  Dix  lived  in  Worces- 
ter in  a  house^  near  the  present  Court  House  at  Lincoln 
Square,  a  decoy  call  came  at  night  summoning  him  to  the 
bedside  of  an  imaginary  patient,  on  his  way  to  which  the 
plan  was  to  waylay  him  in  ambush.  Thus  trapped,  the 
trick  of  the  conspirators  was  to  drive  him  from  Worces- 
ter. The  antagonism  of  his  iron  will  and  the  unyielding 
purpose  with  which  he  relentlessly  pursued  certain  enter- 
prises had  raised  up  enemies.  Among  the  enterprises 
which  they  derided  was  the  planting  of  Worcester  shade- 
trees,  an  idea  of  which  he  was  the  father,  and  which 
made  him  a  butt  of  ridicule.  The  turnpike  from  Boston 
to  Worcester  was  also  among  the  things  of  which  he  was 
promoter.  In  his  civic  work  this  uncompromising  stand 
for  conviction  had  made  him  a  target,  and  the  shaft  this 
night  fell  at  his  door. 

Divining  danger,  he  did  not  quail,  but  threw  up  the 
window  and  called  out  to  his  stable-boy  in  loud  tones: 


iNow  moved  to  No.  1  Fountain  Street.  It  is  the  house  to  which 
the  patriot  Warren's  wife  and  children  came  for  shelter  during  the 
Revolution. 


124  MASTERMINDS 

"Bring  round  my  horse,  and  see  that  the  pistols  in  my 
holsters  are  double-shotted ;  then  give  the  bull-dog  a  piece 
of  raw  meat  and  turn  him  loose ! ' ' 

It  is  enough  to  say  he  was  unmolested. 

The  iron  of  such  courage  in  her  grandfather  was  by  a 
kind  of  spiritual  carbon  to  be  carbonized  in  Dorothy  into 
finer  steel.  The  high-strung  nerve  which  allowed  her  to 
eye  calmly  the  muzzle  of  a  desperado 's  pistol,  look  out  of 
countenance  the  slur  of  low  politicians,  and  again  and 
again  tame  a  maniac's  wild  stare,  was  to  be  hers  by  divine 
right.  In  her  it  was  the  trinity  of  that  triple  courage 
which  is  physical,  moral  and  spiritual. 

Dame  Dix  therefore  could  not  break  it,  though  she  was 
strenuousness  personified  and  a  speaking  image  of  Puri- 
tanism at  its  strictest.  Her  Puritan  forebears  had  left 
Charlestown  when  it  was  set  in  flames  by  British  fireballs, 
only  to  return  from  Worcester  to  Boston  concentrated  in 
her — a  composite  picture  of  them  all.  The  little  slip  of 
the  old  tree  found  her  book  and  bell  good  discipline, 
however,  and  the  virgin  stock  was  not  bent  but  toughened 
into  "a  dread  of  a  secret  desire  to  escape  from  labor 
which,  unless  hourly  controlled,  will  overcome  and 
destroy  the  best  faculties  of  our  mind  and  paralyze  our 
most  useful  powers."  This  conviction  in  1812-1814, 
Dorothy  later  affirmed,  became  enfibred  in  her  very 
being.  She  was  thus  endowed  with  a  constitution  that 
could  endure  seventy  years  of  high-keyed  labor  eighteen 
hours  each  day! 

HER  DIFFERENCE  WITH  THE  OLD  PURITANISM  OF  LAW  AND  HER 
QUEST  OF  THE  NEW  LOVE-LIGHT  OF  CHARITY 

Yet  there  was  an  extreme  in  all  this — an  extreme  which 
drove  her  to  a  desperation  which  led,  like  all  her  despera- 


DOROTHY   DIX  125 

tions,  to  an  inspiration.  In  this  step  she  advanced  to  a 
quality  which  Puritanic  Elijah  Dix  and  Dame  Dix  never 
knew. 

No  good-night  kisses,  no  stories  to  warm  the  imagina- 
tion, no  affection  to  melt  the  heart  or  warm  the  nature  in 
the  stately  Dix  mansion !  A  special  indulgence  granted 
as  a  prize  was  the  making  under  Dame  Dix's  eye  of  an 
entire  shirt,  not  one  stitch  of  which  could  vary  from  the 
other  ''by  the  width  of  a  micrometer."  Under  this  and 
the  pressing  intellectualism  of  Boston's  school  life,  Doro- 
thy's heart  was  starved  to  feed  the  mind  and  will. 

"An  enemy  to  all  enthusiasm,"  is  a  line  of  eulogy  at 
Copp's  Hill  on  an  old  Bostonian's  tombstone  of  an  early 
day. 

But  the  girl  refused  to  be  such  an  enemy  and  to  stifle 
heart  and  imagination.  In  1816,  coming  back  to  Worces- 
ter after  two  years  of  such  training,  at  the  age  of  four- 
teen, it  seemed  as  though  the  vise  of  iron  about  her  frail 
frame  and  mind  had  pressed  out  these  higher  and  finer 
traits.  Her  little  "Worcester  pupils  later  recalled,  along 
with  her  excellent  teaching,  the  cold  dignity  with  which 
like  a  pillar  of  chilled  steel  she  stood  erect  over  their 
desks  irresponsive  to  the  more  playful  and  tenderer  heart- 
strings of  a  child.  Such  may  have  been  a  true  impres- 
sion, but  she  was  not  to  remain  chilled  steel.  If  she  had 
ever  been  frozen  music,  the  music  was  now  to  melt  in  the 
great  Boston  revolt  from  a  cold  lovelessness. 

By  1816  this  reaction,  led  by  Channing,  was  at  its 
height.  From  a  holy  selfishness  she  chose  now  without 
casting  away  the  Puritan  ideal  of  holiness,  the  lovelight 
of  selflessness. 

This  melting  of  the  old  Puritanism  of  law  into  the 
new   Pilgrim  spirit   of  love  made    of    the    two   a  mag- 


126  MASTERMINDS 

nificent  combination.  There  was  a  flux  of  both.  As  the 
new  fires  of  humanitarianism  reflected  their  glow  against 
the  stifi'  Dix  mansion  and  into  her  room,  in  place  of  a 
society  that  drew  its  skirts  from  the  other  half  as  outlawed, 
she  welcomed  the  new  leaning  toward  mercy  and  the 
searching  out  of  earth's  friendless  and  afflicted. 

An  aristocratic  day  and  boarding  school  she  was  set 
over  by  Dame  Dix.  It  contained  the  daughters  of  Bos- 
ton's most  select  and  exclusive.  Dorothy's  ability  and 
drawing  powers  upon  this  quarter  enabled  her  to  gratify 
her  desire  to  relieve  financially  her  father's  load.  This 
she  did  by  taking  her  two  brothers  to  Boston  to  educate 
and  start  in  business,  one  to  become  commander  of  an 
American  vessel,  the  other  a  successful  Boston  mer- 
chant. 

To  Dr.  Daniel  Tuke,  the  English  alienist,  she  confided 
later  in  life  that  up  to  this  time  she  had  been  determined 
"to  live  to  herself,  to  enjoy  literature  and  art" — in  other 
words,  to  be  a  useless  vestal  of  culture  instead  of  an  un- 
veiled sister  of  mercy. 

Happy  the  change ! 

Happy  the  time  when  to  return  to  her  own  beautiful 
confession  she  "discovered  the  fatal  mistake  and  deter- 
mined to  live  for  the  good  of  men.  The  suffering  to 
be  comforted,  the  wandering  led  home,  the  sinner 
reclaimed !  How  can  any  fold  their  hands,  rest  and  say 
to  the  spirit,  'Take  thine  ease,  for  all  is  well'?" 

Into  the  cold  intellectual  anremia  of  the  Boston  patri- 
cian flushed  the  warm  Christ-blood  of  the  new  passion. 
But  it  abode  as  no  mere  lovely  emotion. 

There  was  the  old  Dix  barn.  Why  should  she  not 
begin  here?  Fit  this  up?  Gather  and  educate  free  the 
children  of  the  poor  who  were  shut  out  of  private  schools? 


DOROTHY   DIX  127 

Dame  Dix's  hauteur  at  the  thought  of  down-trodden, 
miserable  waifs  and  gamin  coming  under  the  stiff  lines 
of  the  Dix  mansion,  the  girl  disarmed  by  this  plea. 

"Let  me  rescue  some  of  our  America's  miserable  chil- 
dren from  vice  and  gnilt.  Do,  my  dear  grandmother, 
yield  to  my  request  and  witness  next  summer  the  reward 
of  your  benevolence  and  Christian  complaisance."  So 
searching  was  the  plea  explaining  all  the  motives  and 
dwelling  on  all  the  good,  good  to  the  poor,  the  miserable, 
the  idle,  the  ignorant,  that  Dame  Dix  at  last  conde- 
scended. 

With  this  consent  we  mark  Dorothy  Dix  bridging  her 
second  difference — a  difference  with  the  over-sternness 
of  the  grand  old  Puritanism.  Keeping  its  holiness  she 
walked  with  all  its  iron-sharded  power  over  into  the  lists 
of  earth's  afflicted  whose  cause  she  was  at  once  to  chal- 
lenge and  to  champion. 

The  bridging  of  such  a  difference  was  a  pontoon  to  a  new 
success.  It  was  her  life's  career.  Not  so  much  when  amid 
Boston's  Four  Hundred  in  the  Dix  mansion,  but  as  she 
touched  the  hearts  of  the  wretched  in  the  barn,  her  pen- 
tecostal  gift  and  tongue  of  fire  were  revealed ! 

HER  DIFFERENCE  WITH  HER  HEALTH  AND  THE  SECRET  OF  HER 
TRIUMPHANT  CONSTITUTION 

But  just  here  on  the  eve  of  this  discovery  came  a  third 
difference  to  meet — a  difference  with  her  health, 
a  difference  to  bridge  which  she  had  to  combat  all  her 
life.  At  fourteen,  when  she  taught  school  for  two 
years  in  Worcester,  it  was  evident  that  the  tall  slip 
of  a  girl  who  had  just  lengthened  her  skirts  and 
put  up  her  hair  was  to  run  the  gauntlet  with  death. 
Such  sharp  pains  stabbed  her  in  the  side  that  even  then 


128  MASTERMINDS 

she  had  to  hold  to  a  bench  for  support  as  she  clasped  her 
waist.  By  1826  the  eonsumptic  symptoms  attacked  her 
voice  so  that  it  became  noticeably  husky.  Pumped  into 
the  brain  out  of  the  body,  there  to  be  exhausted,  it  seemed 
as  if  her  blood  was  prey  to  the  white  plague  to  a  degree 
no  mortal  could  withstand. 

Her  vicarious  talks  with  the  girls  in  the  day  school  fol- 
lowed, with  heart-searching  interviews,  a  Saturday-night 
question-box  which  she  turned  into  a  confessional.  To  all 
this  many  a  girl  owed  her  making.  But  to  the  teacher 
apparently  it  was  her  un-making. 

Every  day  it  was  her  habit  to  get  up  at  daybreak 
— at  four  in  summer,  at  five  in  winter,  and  remain  at 
work  till  midnight. 

Suction  on  nerve  and  system  from  the  night  work  of  the 
Charity  School  was  an  additional  tax,  enough  to  collapse 
the  physique  and  eclipse  the  career  of  a  giantess,  to  say 
nothing  of  her  frail  frame. 

That  the  inroad  of  the  disease  did  not  snap  the  iron  in 
her  soul  and  break  it  completely  was  indeed  a  miracle — 
a  miracle,  however,  whose  secret  lay  in  her  wonderful 
connection  with  the  Source  of  power.  Though  she  arose 
at  four  in  summer  and  five  in  winter,  one  whole  hour  she 
spent  alone  in  the  morning  watch  with  her  Bible.  There- 
fore could  she  write :  ' '  The  hour  of  bodily  suffering  is  to 
me  invariably  the  hour  of  spiritual  joy. "  '  *  It  is  happiness 
to  feel  progression  and  to  feel  that  the  power  that  thus 
aids  is  not  of  earth." 

To  such  a  soul  even  sleepless  nights  unlocked  new  pleas- 
ures, and  the  star-studded  constellations,  otherwise  unseen, 
sang  to  her,  as  she  lay  wakeful,  the  music  of  the  spheres. 

In  1827  she  began  a  series  of  joumeyings  with  the 
family  of  Dr.  William  Ellery  Channing,  who  was  also  in 


DOROTHT   DIX  129 

search  of  health  and  had  chosen  Miss  Dix  as  governess  of 
his  children.  For  six  months  of  spring  and  summer  she 
suffered  the  sea-change  of  Rhode  Island's  shore,  where 
Dr.  Channing  had  a  country  seat,  and  where  her  soul 
also  enjoyed  the  marvelous  sea-walk  to  which  the  illus- 
trious Channing  owed  such  inspiration.  IMarine  life  and 
the  rich  flora  of  the  Rhode  Island  and  Providence  planta- 
tions exposed  also  to  her  keen  eye  an  apocalypse  of 
nature's  secrets. 

The  "v^^nters  Miss  Dix  spent  for  several  successive  sea- 
sons in  Philadelphia,  and  Alexandria,  Virginia.  Here 
she  was  kept  alive  by  not  only  the  milder  clime,  but  by 
healthful  spirits  engendered,  as  they  always  are,  by  new- 
born purposes.  In  1824  she  wrote  a  crystallization  of  her 
inner  musings,  entitled  "The  Science  of  Common 
Things."  It  reached  afterwards  sixty  editions,  and  was 
followed  by  seven  boofe  on  the  higher  life. 

In  1830  she  visited  the  West  Indies,  landing  at  St. 
Croix  with  Dr.  Channing's  family  and  meeting  her  first 
shock  from  the  slavery  system.  Overcoming  the  inertia 
of  the  tropics,  which  she  confessed  laid  her  rebellious  self 
flat  on  a  sofa,  by  sheer  triumph  of  will  she  shook  it  off 
and  arose  from  a  languor  in  which  "one,"  as  she  said, 
"does  nothing,  is  nothing,  thinks  nothing,"  to  study  the 
system  of  slavery,  whose  "creatures  cannot  be  Christians, 
cannot  act  as  moral  beings  and  for  whom  none  can  pay 
the  awful  price  but  those  who  have  hidden  from  them  the 
bread  of  life." 

Returning  to  Boston  by  1836,  her  day  school  financially 
and  academically  a  success,  she  gave  her  real  heart's 
blood  to  her  Charity  School.  Hemorrhages,  a  hectic 
flush  and  chest-pains  marked  her  as  one  of  those  who  die 
of  having  lived  too  much.  The  currents,  mental  and 
9 


130  MASTERMINDS 

soulful,  that  for  five  years  had  so  overdriven  the  mill- 
wheels  of  her  physical  life-stream,  now  compelled  her  to 
leave  both  schools  and  spend  eighteen  months 
with  cultured  sympathizers  in  England.  Thence  she 
returned  to  find  her  poor  mother  dead  in  New  Hampshire, 
and  her  proud  grand-dame  dead  in  Boston. 

HER  DIFFERENCE  WITH  THE  WORLD 's  NEGLECT  OP  THE 
DEMENTED   AND   HER   CONQUEST  AS  '' CHAMPION 
AND  CHAI^LENGER  OF  THE  INSANE" 

A  new  difference  now  was  to  arise,  the  greatest  dif- 
ference of  her  life,  the  difference  that  led  to  her  great 
discovery  and  bridged  her  way  to  her  career.  It  was  a 
difference,  the  friction  of  which  was  to  catch  and  generate 
into  power  a  spiritual  electricity  that  unlocked  new  layers 
of  energy.  This  difference  was  with  the  world's  barbaric 
neglect  of  the  insane. 

"Woe,  woe,  if  thou  dost  not  champion  these  outcast  and 
miserable  ones!" 

This  call  of  the  prophetess,  greater  than  which  there  has 
never  been  any,  planted  Dorothy  Dix's  feet  on  the  world- 
wide bridge  of  sighs  to  the  shunned  sphere  of  the  demented. 
In  Christ's  day  their  sphere  was  in  the  Perea — the  be- 
yond. So  was  it  still  in  Dorothy  Dix's  day.  The  insane 
existed  and  died  apart,  in  a  land  beyond  human  sjonpathy 
and  human  care  and  human  love. 

It  came  to  her  in  this  way.  Knowing  her  reputation 
as  an  authority  and  expert  in  charity  work,  which  began 
in  her  barn  school,  a  Cambridge  divinity  student,  who 
had  failed  to  reach  the  women  of  the  Cambridge  jail, 
came  to  see  Miss  Dix,  who  was  now  much  sought  in  Bos- 
ton. 


DOROTHY    DIX  131 

**I  shall  take  them  myself,"  she  replied. 

To  the  youngf  elerfiyman's  expostulation  she  simply 
added:  "I  shall  be  there  next  Sunday!" 

Among  the  prisoners  was  a  group  of  insane,  and  par- 
ticularly noticeable  were  two  women  with  no  fire  to  warm 
them,  planked  in,  and  caged  by  a  stone  wall  all  winter  from 
November  to  March.  The  elder  was  a  hag  shrieking 
curses  at  the  younger,  who  w^as  but  a  slightly  irrational 
girl. 

To  Dorothy  Dix  it  became  but  a  focal  point  from 
which  to  see  ten  tho^^sand  times  ten  thousand  similar 
cases  all  over  the  world. 

But  were  all  insane  so  beyond  the  pale  of  human  mercy? 
Relying  on  no  impulsive  judgment  which  might  be  due  to 
a  woman's  hypersensitiveness,  she  investigated. 

Two  silent  yeare  of  intensest  activity  followed.  At 
every  keeper's  door,  at  every  poor-house  and  jail  in  Mas- 
sachusetts, there  her  frail  hand  knocked. 

From  Cambridge  jail  to  the  Berkshires,  from  Province- 
town  to  Fitchburg,  the  trim  little  woman  in  white  linen 
and  grey  traveled  alone.  Into  a  note-book  she  jotted 
down  specifically  and  exactly  what  she  saw.  None  dared 
deny  her  entrance.  The  fire  of  a  spirit  willing  to  be 
martyred  if  necessary  gleamed  in  her  eye  and  convicted 
by  its  determined  gaze.  TAventy-four  months  were  thus 
consumed  when,  like  the  apparition  of  an  ancient  seer, 
she  appeared  at  the  Legislature  of  Massachusetts — not 
with  the  hysteria  of  a  sentimentalist,  but  armed  with 
facts — facts  scientific,  proved,  articulate;  facts  compelling 
and  uncontestable.  She  spoke  not  a  word  in  public  from 
the  rostrum,  but  with  that  delicate  feminine  instinct  that 
at  once  disarmed  opposition  she  worked  in  private,  chose 
the  mouth-pieces  of  her  facts,  then  charged  upon  Senate 


132  MASTERMINDS 

and  House  with  the  irresistible  calibre  of  her  loaded 
memorial.  Drawn  up  in  it  were  the  points  she  had  taken 
over  seven  hundred  laborious  days  to  collate  and  which 
she  thus  prefaced : 

*'I  tell  what  I  have  seen,  painful  and  shocking  as  the 
details  are,  to  prevent  the  possibility  of  repetition  or  con- 
tinuance of  such  outrages  upon  humanity.  I  proceed, 
gentlemen,  to  call  your  attention  to  the  present  state  of 
insane  persons  within  this  Commonwealth — in  cages, 
closets,  cellars,  stalls,  pens ;  chained,  naked,  beaten  with 
rods  and  lashed  into  obedience." 

Beasts  without  souls,  disenspirited  bodies — so  were  the 
insane  as  a  whole  regarded  in  America.  Save  at  one  or 
two  semi-privat€  places  of  detention,  the  ancient  con- 
ception of  the  demented  still  prevailed,  a  conception 
which  believed  them  possessed  with  devils  and  no  longer 
human. 

In  1792  Philippe  Pinel,  the  father  of  alienists,  confronted 
by  the  municipal  pit  into  which  the  metropolis  of  Paris, 
France,  threw  its  bedlam  of  insane,  cried  to  the  heads  of 
the  Commune : 

"Off  with  these  chains — away  with  these  iron  cages 
and  brutal  keepers.  They  make  a  hundred  mad  men 
where  there  was  one.  An  insane  man  is  not  an  inflex- 
ible monster.  Underneath  his  wildest  paroxysms  there 
is  a  germ  at  least  of  rationality.  To  believe  in  this,  to 
seek  for  it,  stimulate  it,  build  it  up — here  lies  the  only 
way  of  delivering  him."  In  answer  iron  doors  whose 
hinges  had  corroded  for  generations  upon  creatures  with- 
in were  knocked  off,  manacled  chains  had  their  battered 
serewheads  wrenched  away,  and  haggard,  grey-headed 
wild  men  walked  out  to  see  the  blue  sky  and  to  become 
as  little  children. 


DOROTHY   DIX  133 

In  1796  William  Tuke  in  England,  the  path-breaker 
among  English  alienists,  did  the  same  thing,  changing  the 
London  Amphitheatre  of  maniacs  from  a  museum  of 
curios  every  one  went  to  visit  as  a  human  zoo  to  what  was 
in  the  real  sense  of  the  word,  "<j  retreat.'' 

Coming  upon  such  an  inspiration  quite  independently 
as  we  have  seen,  Dorothy  Dix  became  the  apostle  in 
America  of  this  revolution,  universalizing  here  and 
throughout  the  world  what  the  other  reformers  had 
started  in  their  own  municipality. 

Charles  Sumner  headed  the  memorialists  who  presented 
Dorothy  Dix's  monograph  of  facts.  Behind  him  were 
such  other  memorialists  as  Samuel  Howe,  Horace  Mann, 
Drs.  Palfrey  and  Channing,  and  Superintendents  Bell  of 
the  McLean  and  Woodward  of  Worcester,  Calling  the 
roll  of  county  after  county,  her  recital  presented  its  cham- 
bers of  horrors: — 

"Dan vers!" — Exposed  were  60  inmates;  witness  one — 

*'She  had  passed  from  one  degree  of  violence  and  deg- 
radation to  another  in  swift  progress;  there  she  stood 
clinging  to  or  beating  upon  the  bars  of  her  caged  apart- 
ment, the  contracted  size  of  which  afforded  space  only 
for  increasing  accumulations  of  filth.  There  she  stood 
with  naked  arms  and  disheveled  hair,  the  unwashed 
frame  invested  Avith  fragments  of  undergarments,  the  air 
so  extremely  offensive  that  it  was  not  possible  to  remain 
beyond  a  few  moments  without  retreating  for  recovery  to 
the  outward  air.  Irritation  of  body  excited  her  to  the 
horrid  process  of  tearing  off  her  skin  by  inches.  All,  all, 
coarse,  brutal  men,  wandering,  neglected  children,  old 
and  young,  each  and  all,  witnessed  this  lowest,  frailest 
state  of    miserable    humanity.     And  who    protects    that 


134  MASTERMINDS 

worse  tlian  Pariah  outcast  from  other  wrongs  and  blacker 
outrages?" 

"Sandisfield!"— 

"A  pauper  young  woman,  a  raging  maniac — a  cage  of 
chains  and  a  whip  were  the  agents  for  controlling  her, 
united  with  hard  tones  and  profane  language.  Annually 
with  others  she  was  put  up  at  auction ! ' ' 

By  chance  a  kindly  man  had  taken  this  poor  soul  and 
knocked  off  the  rust-encrusted  chains.  The  result  showed 
what  could  be  done — the  making  of  a  frenzied  maniac  a 
being  docile  and  at  peace,  calling  her  benefactors  "father 
and  mother. ' ' 

"Groton!"— 

"A  wooden  building  upon  the  roadside  of  heavy  boards 
and  planks!  No  window  save  a  hole  closed  by  boards! 
A  young  man,  with  a  heavy  iron  chain,  in  an  iron  collar, 
wintered  from  November  to  April  with  the  hole  closed 
with  boards  in  darkness  and  alone!" 

"Shelburn!"— 

"A  lunatic  pauper.  A  stye  of  rough  boards.  The 
inmate  stirred  with  a  stick!  The  food  pushed  through  a 
loose  board!  A  bed  a  mass  of  filth!  No  fire!"  "He's 
cleaned  out  now  and  then,  but  what's  the  use?" 

"Newton!"— 

"Woman  furiously  mad — she  rushed  out  the  length  of 
the  chain  almost  nude,  belching  out  filthy  words  to  by- 
standers." 

"Worcester!"— 

"A  lunatic  pauper  of  decent  and  respectable  family, 
outraged  in  the  almshouse,  later  with  an  infant  in  arms." 


DOROTHY   DIX  135 

These  present  but  an  average  of  her  dreary  catalogue 
of  Massachusetts  insane  penned  in  poor-houses  or 
auctioned  off  and  farmed  out. 

The  memorial  concluded: 

' '  Men  of  Massachusetts,  I  beg,  I  implore,  I  demand,  pity 
and  protection  for  these  of  my  suffering,  outraged  sex. 
Fathers,  husbands,  brothers,  I  would  supplicate  you  for 
this  boon.  Here  you  will  put  away  the  cold,  calculating 
spirit  of  selfishness  and  self-seeking,  lay  off  the  armor  of 
local  strife  and  political  opposition;  here  and  now,  for 
once  forgetful  of  the  earthly  and  perishable,  come  up  to 
these  halls  and  consecrate  them  with  one  heart  and  mind 
to  a  work  of  righteousness  and  just  judgment.  Gentle- 
men, I  commit  you  to  this  sacred  course.  Your  action 
upon  this  subject  will  affect  the  present  and  future  condi- 
tion of  hundreds  of  thousands. ' ' 

Seated  for  consultation  in  an  out-of-the-way  alcove,  the 
modest  author  of  the  memorial  never  appeared  upon  the 
floor.  Nevertheless,  here  as  in  state  after  state,  she 
became  the  storm-centre  round  whom  raged  the  wrath  of 
keepers,  selectmen  and  politicians.  Her  memorial  was 
referred  to  a  committee.  Sumner,  Howe,  Mann,  Bell  and 
Woodward  confirmed  her  point  of  view  as  even  an  under- 
statement of  facts.  The  committee's  report  came  back 
citing  additional  cases  of  maltreatment  and  an  appeal  for 
legislative  action.  Brought  to  vote  under  pressure  of 
public  opinion,  previously  as  always  preinformed  and 
educated  by  Miss  Dix's  editorials  and  contributions,  the 
bill  was  carried  by  a  majority,  and  the  first  step  taken 
was  to  build  quarters  for  two  hundred  more  insane  at 
Worcester. 

Facts  collected  at  the  southern  boundaries  of  Massachu- 
setts apprised  Miss  Dix  of  similar  conditions  in  Connecti- 


136  MASTERMINDS 

cut  and  Rhode  Island.  Doing  the  duty  at  hand  always 
commands  the  larger  beyond  and  over  the  line  into 
other  states  Dorothy  Dix  is  to  go  on  till  her  experience  is 
to  be  repeated  in  thirty-two  states  of  the  Union,  then  and 
since  then  to  be  reproduced  and  yet  again  reproduced  the 
world  over. 

The  first  case  over  the  border-line  was  in  Rhode  Island 
in  Little  Compton.  A  man  was  imprisoned  in  a  square 
six  by  eight,  clapped  behind  a  double  wall  and  two  iron 
doors.  Here  he  was — buried  alive  without  fresh  air  and 
light,  half  an  inch  of  frost  coating  the  inner  stone  walls, 
his  comfortable  of  straw  frozen  stiff  with  drippings,  thawed 
only  by  his  panting  breath,  a  sheet  of  ice  his  covering! 

"He's  here,"  said  the  mistress  to  Miss  Dix,  warning  the 
lady  in  grey  to  stand  back  lest  he  spring  out  and  kill 
her  as  she  went  down  into  the  underground  hole. 

"I  took  his  hands,"  said  Miss  Dix,  who  had  ignored  the 
warning,  "and  endeavored  to  warm  them  by  gentle  fric- 
tion. I  spoke  to  him  of  release,  of  care  and  kindness.  A 
tear  stole  over  his  hollow  cheek." 

Hereupon  Miss  Dix  stumbled  over  a  chain  in  the  dark, 
linked  as  it  was  to  an  iron  ring  on  the  creature's  leg. 

"My  husband  in  winter,"  called  the  keeper's  wife  from 
her  safe  position  without,  "rakes  out  sometimes  of  a 
morning  a  half  bushel  of  frost  and  yet  he  never  freezes!" 

Publishing  the  case  to  melt  the  public  mind.  Miss  Dix 
planned  the  Rhode  Island  attack,  pre-arranging  friends  of 
the  measure,  the  getting  of  whom  she  always  made  the 
crux  of  the  campaign. 

Chief  of  these  men  was  a  Mr.  Cyrus  Butler.  But  upon 
her  appearance  he  dodged  the  issue. 

"Mr.  Butler,  I  wish  you  to  hear  what  I  have  to  say.  I 
want  to  bring  before  you  certain  facts  involving  terrible 


DOROTHY   DIX  137 

suffering  to  your  fellow  creatures  around  you — suffering 
you  can  relieve.  My  duty  will  end  when  I  have  done 
this  and  with  you  will  rest  all  further  responsibility!" 

Then  followed  the  recital,  beginning  with  the  man  in 
the  frost-coated  pen. 

"Miss  Dix,"  said  Mr.  Butler  at  length,  "what  do  you 
want  me  to  do?"  "I  want  you  to  give  $40,000  towards 
the  enlargement  of  the  insane  in  this  city." 

"Madam,  I'll  do  it." 

The  psychological  moment  in  Rhode  Island  was  thus 
won  beforehand  and  the  back  of  private  opposition 
broken. 

Given  confidence  by  this  success  in  Massachusetts  and 
Rhode  Island,  Dorothy  Dix  saw  the  horizon  lift,  and  felt 
inspired  to  a  campaign  whose  field  was  the  United  States 
and  the  world!  So  far  she  had  worked  with  the  feeble 
beginnings  of  one  or  two  semi-private  plants,  such  as 
existed  in  Massachusetts  and  Rhode  Island.  She  was  to 
conquer  now  a  world — a  world  almost  destitute  of  any 
insane  retreat — a  world  foreign  even  to  the  idea. 

In  such  a  world  New  Jersey  afforded  this  first  point  of 
action. 

Instead  of  a  foolish  bombardment  upon  reacting  sympa- 
thies, Miss  Dix  as  usual  spent  months  in  a  patient  collec- 
tion of  facts  in  every  jail  and  poor-house. 

Winning  a  leader  in  Hon.  Joseph  S.  Dodd,  she  advanced 
the  attack  by  laying  less  accent  than  before  upon  the 
cruelty  of  keepers  and  more  upon  the  positive  ' '  way  out, ' ' 
pointing  to  something  better  in  the  place  of  that  which 
she  could  only  elsewise  condemn.  This  positive  treat- 
ment grew  upon  her  and  worked  "with  increasing  effect. 
She  quoted  in  her  recountal  such  types  as  that  of  a  female 
whose  marred  limbs  were  rutted  by  year-old  iron,  and 


138  MASTERMINDS 

who  said:  "I  could  curse  those  who  chain  me  like  a  brute 
beast,  and  I  do,  too;  but  sometimes  the  soft  voice  says: 
'Pray  for  thine  enemy.'  " 

Another  voice  was  that  of  a  manacled  old  judge  who, 
though  for  years  a  noted  jurist  among  them,  was  now 
quickly  forgotten. 

"I  am  all  broken  up,  all  broken  up,"  he  wailed,  clasp- 
ing his  chains. 

In  answer  to  the  question,  "Do  you  feel  much  weaker, 
judge  ? "  he  moaned, ' '  The  mind,  the  mind,  is  almost  gone ! ' ' 

Armed  as  it  was  with  many  such  heart-piercing  resur- 
rections of  their  own  acquaintances,  this  was  the  result  of 
the  Dix  memorial  to  the  Legislature : 

"We  can  only  report  what  is  better  said  by  Miss  Dix, 
which  presents  the  whole  subject  in  so  broad  a  manner  as 
to  supersede  further  remarks." 

One  by  one  wavering  legislators  were  brought  before 
the  quiet  woman  in  drab,  only  to  go  out — won ! 

Daylight  was  spent  in  such  resultful  work,  yet  by  night 
Miss  Dix  sat  in  the  hotel  parlor  as  hostess  of  circles  of 
legislators,  to  whom  she  outlined  her  plans. 

One,  a  country  member,  had  declared,  "The  wails  of 
the  insane  are  all  humbug. ' '  But  after  an  hour  and  a  half 
audience  he  concluded : 

"Ma'am,  I  bid  you  good-night.  I  do  not  want,  for  my 
part,  to  hear  anjrthing  more.  The  others  can  stay  if  they 
want  to — I  am  convinced.  You've  conquered  me  out  and 
out.  I  shall  vote  for  the  hospital.  If  you  can  come  to 
the  House  and  talk  as  you  have  done  here,  no  man  that 
isn't  a  brute  can  withstand  you!" 

March  25th,  1845,  came  the  unanimous  passage  of  the 
bill  for  the  establishment  of  the  New  Jersey  Insane  Hos- 
pital— the  first  full-fledged  triumph — a  hospital  built  on 


DOROTHY   DIX  139 

no  other's  foundation.  But  it  was  a  triiimph  we  are 
to  see  her  reproduce  again  and  again.  Under  the  roof- 
tree  of  this  New  Jersey  Hospital  she  was  to  choose  her 
place  to  die.  But  that  day  was  forty-two  years  off,  and 
this  triumph  of  a  hospital  built  on  no  other's  founda- 
tion was  in  this  time  to  be  reproduced  in  over  twenty 
American  commonwealths  before  it  leaped  the  border  into 
Canada  and  crossed  the  seas  into  the  old  world. 

In  Pennsylvania  it  was  duplicated  at  Ilarrisburg.  But 
between  sessions  in  one  state  Miss  Dix  was  always  busy 
in  another.  For  instance :  Prom  Lexington,  Kentucky, 
as  early  as  1843,  two  years  before  the  New  Jersey  vote, 
Miss  Dix  recorded  this  statement:  "I  have  been  labo- 
riously traveling  through  the  country  collecting  facts 
and  information." 

Let  us  imagine  the  cultured  sensitive  gentlewoman  day 
after  day  standing  in  her  physical  frailty  before  wild- 
eyed  maniacs  as  the  bolts  were  drawn  and  the  keepers 
retired — a  mental  and  moral  queen.  And  previous  to  this 
experience  day  after  day  recall  her,  besides  fronting  the 
coarse  stares  of  hostile  keepers,  before  the  meanest  and 
lowest,  "the  party  demagogues,  shocking  to  say,  the  basest 
characters."  Yet  doors  unlocked  before  the  avenger,  and 
in  her  tell-tale  note-book  the  dooks  were  opened.  Every 
time  she  entered.  Judgment  Day  had  come  for  the  insane. 

*  *  I  shall  go  to  the  Southern  prisons  after  the  Legislature 
arises  in  this  State,"  was  her  untiring  look  ahead. 

Down  the  Mississippi  to  New  Orleans  and  Baton  Rouge, 
into  the  State  of  Mississippi  to  Jackson;  back  into  Mis- 
souri to  Jefferson  City;  over  into  Illinois  to  Alton — thus 
she  penetrated  the  Interior  and  the  South. 

No  railroads — and  highways  all  but  impassable — she 
was  compelled  to  carry  a  kit  of  tools  to  mend  with  her 


140  MASTERMINDS 

own  skill  broken-down  wagons  as  they  jousted  over  cor- 
duroy roads,  or  sank  in  black  mud  to  the  hub,  or  forded 
streams  with  water  up  to  the  floor,  where  once  and  again 
the  horses  sank  their  haunches  into  sandbars,  and  axle- 
trees  broke  as  back  wheels  rolled  off  in  the  rapid  current. 
On  river-boats  with  burning  malarial  fever — once  on  a 
boat  blown  up  by  a  boiler  explosion, — she  traveled  the 
waterways  as  the  highways,  never  thinking  of  self.  Upon 
crossing  the  gang  plank  her  first  question  was  always  not 
as  to  her  berth,  but — ''are  any  sick  aboard?" 

In  Llichigan  she  boldly  forced  her  paths  across  trackless 
wilds  of  forests. 

"I  had  hired  a  carriage  and  a  driver  to  convey  me 
some  distance  through  an  uninhabited  portion  of  the 
country,"  she  recorded  of  this  State.  "In  starting  I  dis- 
covered that  the  driver,  a  young  lad,  had  a  pair  of  pis- 
tols with  him.  Inquiring  what  he  was  doing  with  arms, 
lie  said  that  he  carried  them  to  protect  us,  as  he  had 
heard  that  robberies  had  been  committed  along  our  road. 
I  said  to  him:  'Give  me  the  pistols,  I  will  take  care  of 
them.'    He  did  so  reluctantly. 

"In  pursuing  our  way  through  a  dismal-looking  forest, 
a  man  rushed  into  the  road,  caught  the  horse  by  the 
bridle,  and  demanded  ray  purse.  I  said  to  him  with  as 
much  self-possession  as  I  could  command:  'Are  you  not 
ashamed  to  rob  a  woman?  I  have  but  little  money  and 
that  I  want  to  defray  my  expenses  in  visiting  prisons  and 
poor-houses,  and  occasionally  giving  to  objects  of  char- 
ity. If  you  have  been  unfortunate,  are  in  distress  and  in 
want  of  money,  I  will  give  you  some.' 

"While  thus  speaking,  I  discovered  his  countenance 
changing  and  he  became  deathly  pale. 


DOROTHY   DIX  141 

"'My  God!'  he  exclaimed.  'That  voice!' — and  imme- 
diately told  me  he  had  been  in  the  Philadelphia  Peniten- 
tiary and  had  heard  me  lecturing  to  some  of  the  prison- 
ers in  an  adjoining  cell  and  that  now  he  recognized  my 
voice.  He  then  desired  me  to  pass  on,  and  expressed  deep 
sorrow  at  the  outrage  he  had  committed.  But  I  drew 
out  my  purse,  and  said  to  him:  'I  will  give  you  something 
to  supportyou  untilyou  can  get  into  honest  employment,'  " 

Dorothy  Dix's  record  in  three  years  before  1845.  even 
in  this  bedraggled  and  dangerous  type  of  travel,  was 
over  ten  thousand  miles.  Besides  her  great  quest  she 
visited  in  this  time  state  penitentiaries,  three  hundred 
county  jails,  five  hundred  almshouses,  besides  hospitals  and 
houses  of  refuge.  In  these  thirty-six  months  alone,  she 
succeeded  in  planting  and  promoting  six  hospitals  for  the 
insane  besides  a  number  of  county  poor-houses  and 
improved  jails. 

After  1845  the  great  achievement  of  founding  colossal 
hospitals  for  the  insane  where  none  existed  was  completed 
in  Indiana,  Illinois,  Kentucky,  Tennessee,  Missouri,  Mis- 
sissippi, Louisiana,  Alabama,  South  Carolina,  North  Car- 
olina and  Maryland. 

"Nothing  can  be  done  here,"  had  been  the  people's 
rejoinder  at  North  Carolina. 

"I  reply,"  said  she,  "I  know  no  such  word  in  the 
vocabulary  I  adopt." 

* '  Kill  the  bill,  stillborn, ' '  was  the  opposition 's  cry. 

Exposes  of  conditions  recast  public  opinion,  and  with 
a  previously  prepared  hold  on  Hon.  James  C.  Dobbin  as 
leader,  December,  1848,  she  found  the  vote  to  build,  101 
to  10! 

Constantly  an  invalid,  a,ble  to  rest  only  by  stealing 
snatches  of  repose  between  the  long  travel  stretches,  she 


142  MASTERMINDS 

was  compelled  to  stay  up  till  one  o'clock  at  night  in  order 
to  strike  when  the  iron  was  hot.  When  not  confronting 
groups  of  men  whose  will  power  she  had  to  handle  and 
control,  she  was  writing  newspaper  broadsides. 

Seldom  free  from  enervation,  it  was  in  the  South  that 
she  wrote:  "I  shall  be  well  when  I  get  to  Alabama"  (a 
storm-centre  of  protest).  "The  tonic  I  need  is  the  tonic 
of  opposition.     It  always  sets  me  on  my  feet." 

"Just  one  chance  that  my  bill  would  pass,"  was  her 
comment  concerning  this  Alabama  crisis.  In  1849,  as  a 
last  blow,  the  Alabama  State  Capitol  burned.  Yet  backed 
by  her  picked  leader.  Dr.  Lopez,  and  the  Alabama  State 
Medical  Association,  one  hundred  thousand  dollars  was 
voted,  and  later  one  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  dollars 
more!  The  magnanimous  act  was  closely  seconded  by 
Mississippi  with  twenty- four  majority  in  the  Senate  and 
eighty-one  in  the  House — marking  a  conquest  over  a  pre- 
determination ' '  not  to  give  a  dime  ! "  In  true  Southern 
style  the  legislators'  thanks  were  followed  by  that  drawn 
up  by  the  commissioners,  and  not  finding  this  enough  the 
Southern  great-hearts  bestowed  upon  the  institutions 
Miss  Dix's  name,  an  honor  she  has  always  proceeded  to 
refuse. 

That  summer — into  Canada — but  not  for  rest. 

Canada  was  seemingly  hopeless. 

"I  must  go  by  thy  faith,  for  mine  is  gone,"  wrote  Hon. 
Hugh  Bell,  the  crushed  leader  of  the  cause.  This  was  in 
1850.  In  but  a  short  time  Miss  Dix's  little  figure 
stepped  in  the  breach  and  the  Canadian  Parliament 
closed  with  sixty  thousand  dollars  appropriation,  fol- 
lowed by  twenty  thousand  dollars  more  subscribed. 

Punctuated  was  this  period  by  cheering  news  from 
other  centres  of  agitation.     Baltimore,  Maryland,  wrote 


DOROTHY   BIX  143 

that  her  bill  had  passed.  Kentucky  followed,  declaring 
for  a  hospital  at  Lexington  as  well  as  at  ITopkinsvillo, 
Indiana  for  the  hospital  at  Indianapolis,  Illinois  for  the 
hospital  at  Jacksonville,  ]\Tissouri  for  the  hospital  at  Ful- 
ton, Tennessee  for  the  hospital  at  Nashville,  North  Caro- 
lina for  the  hospital  at  Raleigh,  Alabama  for  a  hospital  at 
Tuscaloosa,  and  the  District  of  Columbia  for  a  hospital  at 
Washington. 

Yet  this  was  not  enough. 

**0n  to  Washington!"  became  her  cry. 

Twenty  odd  State  legislatures  and  Canada  already  won — 
Congress  must  be  won  ! 

In  the  meantime  the  few  friends  of  the  Army  and  Navy 
Hospital  for  the  insane  were  about  to  give  up  the  fight, 
saying:  "There  is  nothing  more  to  be  done." 

*'We  must  try  what  can  be  done,"  was  her  reply. 

Two  days  after  came  an  answer  to  Dorothy  Dix's 
plea,  from  the  owner  of  the  coveted  but  refused  site,  who 
now  offered  her  the  laud,  "regarding  you,"  as  he  wrote 
her,  "the  instrument  in  the  hands  of  God  to  secure  this 
very  spot  for  the  unfortunate  whose  best  earthly  friend 
you  are,  and  believing  that  the  Almighty's  blessing  will 
not  rest  on  or  abide  with  those  who  may  place  obstacles 
in  your  way." 

The  Army  and  the  Navy  Hospital  thus  secured,  before 
the  Federal  Congress  Dorothy  Dix  now  launched  her 
twenty-five-million-aere  bill  for  a  land-grant  "to  promote, 
plant  and  sustain  insane  hospitals  in  the  newer  states  and 
territories."  For  school  purposes  one  hundred  and  forty- 
three  million,  seven  hundred  four  thousand,  nine  hundred 
and  eighty-two  acres  had  already  been  given,  and  vast  tracts 
to  railroads,  and  deaf  and  dumb,  and  blind  institutions ; 
why  should  not  grants  be  made  the  insane  ?     One  sixth  of 


144  MASTERMINDS 

the  insane  of  the  country  were  in  hospitals,  but  five  sixths 
were  outside,  in  horrors  she  only  too  well  had  discovered 
and  thus  described : 

"I  have  myself  seen  more  than  nine  thousand  idiots, 
epileptics  and  insane  in  the  United  States  destitute  of 
appropriate  care  and  protection.  And  of  this  vast  and 
miserable  company  sought  out  in  jails  or  poor-houses  and 
in  private  dwellings,  there  have  been  hundreds,  nay  rather 
thousands,  bound  with  galling  chains,  bruised  beneath 
fetters  and  heavy  iron  balls  attached  to  drag-chains, 
lacerated  with  ropes,  scourged  with  rods,  and  terrified 
beneath  storms  of  profane  execrations,  and  blows;  now 
subject  to  gibes  and  scorn  and  torturing  tricks,  now  aban- 
doned to  the  vilest  and  most  outrageous  violations." 

Congressional  action,  however,  was  deferred  owing  to 
the  new  Democratic  move  against  land-grabbing,  which 
foolishly  included  such  righteous  causes  as  this.  At  this 
opposition  in  1850  Dorothy  Dix  did  not  give  in,  but 
instead  characteristically  increased  the  number  of  acres 
in  the  bill  by  twelve  million,  two  hundred  and  fifty  thou- 
sand. In  1851  the  Senate  passed  the  act  by  a  large  major- 
ity. In  March,  1852,  it  again  passed  the  Senate  and  in 
August  the  House ;  likewise  also  her  bill  for  one  hundred 
thousand  dollars  for  the  Army  and  Navy  Hospital. 

At  this  time,  like  a  thunder-bolt  from  a  clear  sky,  fell 
upon  the  Congressional  bill  for  a  land  grant  the  remark- 
able and  partisan  veto  of  President  Franklin  Pierce! 

At  the  crushing  news  of  the  veto,  INIiss  Dix  sought  Great 
Britain  as  her  change  of  sphere  and  earth's  miserables  as 
her  counter-consolation,  with  this  motto : — 

"Best  is  not  quitting  the  mortal  career, 
Rest  is  the  fitting  of  self  to  its  sphere." 


DOROTHY   DIX  145 

In  Scotland,  sonth  of  Edinhnrpjh,  six  stone  cells  were 
the  only  pnhlic  places  of  confinement  for  the  insane!  The 
bills  of  1848  for  the  relief  and  plantinj?  of  hospitals  had 
been  lost  when  America's  unveiled  Sister  of  Mercy 
arrived  on  the  scene. 

To  every  place  of  detention  of  the  demented  came  the 
knock  of  the  avenger.  The  Lord  Provost  of  Edinburgh 
himself  headed  the  opposition.  He  would  indeed  even  fore- 
stall her  appeal  to  the  Home  Secretary  at  London.  But 
driving  to  the  first  train  out  of  Scotland  for  London  that 
night,  she  secured  her  audience  hours  before  the  Plonorable 
Lord  Provost  alighted  in  due  dignity  from  his  coach. 
Her  interview  resulted  in  the  modification  of  the  lunacy 
laws  of  Scotland,  the  abrogation  of  all  private  money- 
making  establishments  and  the  founding  of  the  great  new 
general  hospitals  by  Parliament's  final  vote.  This  vote 
was  consummated  AugiTst  25th,  1857, 

Debility  of  heart  and  physician's  cautions  could  not 
deter  Dorothy  Dix  from  the  cry  from  the  Channel 
Islands,  where  many  of  England's  insane  were  farmed 
out  for  blood  money.  As  a  result  of  her  visit  and  eon- 
fronting  the  authorities  with  the  conditions,  came  the 
vote  to  build  instead  a  great  English  Hospital  for  tbe 
Insane ! 

In  Switzerland,  the  Chamonix,  Berne,  Oberland,  the 
Glaciers  and  the  Cascades  could  not  drown  or  freeze  Miss 
Dix's  heart  to  an  ultra-montane  cry — a  cry  from  Kome 
itself.  Under  the  shadow  of  the  Vatican  she  found  one  of 
the  most  cruelly  neglected  of  all  places  for  the  detention  of 
insane.  To  the  noble  heart  of  Rome's  Supreme  Pontiff  she 
went  straightway  as  America's  unveiled  Sister  of  Mercy. 
The  Pope  was  transfixed  at  the  exposure.  Visiting  the 
place  secretly  in  person,  his  Eminence  found  it  worse  than 
10 


146  MASTER    MINDS 

described.  By  his  gracious  initiative  a  new  asylum  on  the 
most  approved  plan  soon  reared  its  head. 

In  1856,  upon  Miss  Dix's  return  to  America,  she  was  not 
yet  to  escape  the  call  of  the  demented,  and  she  confessed: 
''If  I  am  cold,  they  are  cold.  If  I  am  iveary,  they  are  dis- 
tressed.    If  I  am  alone,  they  are  abandoned." 

After  four  years  came  the  Civil  War.  whose  bloodshed 
reddened  the  sunset  of  her  afternoon.  Her  field  of  action 
at  once  was  at  the  front  at  Baltimore.  Here  she  revealed 
the  Southern  strategy  which  contemplated  an  attack  upon 
Washington  and  the  capture  of  Lincoln.  I'hrough  the  mob 
she  pressed  to  Washington  to  be  appointed  Superintendent 
of  women  nurses.  In  the  awful  years  of  beautiful  service, 
in  directing  nurses  to  military  camps,  in  supervising  their 
service  throughout  the  army,  in  caring  for  the  thousands 
upon  thousands  of  tons  of  supplies,  what  wonder  human 
ingenuity  sometimes  became  confused  and  human  power 
to  compass  the  situation  fell  short ! 

It  was  said  that  in  those  four  years  she  never  once  sat 
down! 

Grand  as  her  effort,  "it  is  not  the  work  I  am  to  be 
coupled  with,"  was  her  conclusion. 

Yet  her  work  there  was  illustrious. 

It  was  so  notable  a  climax  to  her  career  that  the  United 
States  Secretary  of  War,  by  vote  of  Congress  and  the  War 
Cabinet,  offered,  as  we  have  said,  to  bestow  the  recognition 
of  either  a  fortune  or  a  national  ovation.  Refusing  both, 
as  we  have  seen,  she  chose  instead — ' '  the  flags  of  my  coun- 
try." 

From  now  on  up  to  her  death  in  1887,^  under  the  roof- 
tree  of  her  first-born  hospital  in  New  Jersey,  her  queenly, 

iFrom  the  New  Jersey  State  Lunatic  Asylum,  Trenton,  N.  J., 
April  20,  1888,  from  a  letter  of  the  superintendent,  John  W.  Ward, 


DOROTHY   DIX  147 

nnconqnerable  spirit  reined  like  a  wounded  general's. 
Here  she  spent  her  remaining]:  strenp:th  in  supervisinor  the 
insane  hospitals  of  the  country  and  the  world.  And  in  "the 
hour  of  bodily  suffering:"  which  for  her  was  "the  hour  of 
spiritual  joy,"  her  life's  quest  ended  in  the  fulfillment  of 
her  own  prophecy  of  long  ago  when  she  predicted : 

*  *  This  is  no  romance.  I  shall  see  their  cha/ins  off.  I  shall 
taTce  them  into  the  green  fields  and  show  them  the  lovely 
little  flowers  and  the  blue  sky,  and  they  shall  play  witk 
the  lambs  and  listen  to  the  songs  of  the  birds,  and  a  little 
child  shall  lead  them!" 


to  Hon.  A.  S.  Eoe  of  Worcester,  it  is  stated:  "She  died  about  6 
o'clock  on  the  evening  of  July  18,  1887.  Her  remains  were  buried  in 
the  Mt.  Auburn  Cemetery  at  or  near  Boston,  Mass.  She  was  under 
my  professional  care  for  nearly  five  years.  Her  mind  was  clear  and 
vigorous  to  within  a  few  hours  prior  to  her  decease." 


CLARA   BARTON 

FOUNDER  OP  THE  RED  CROSS  IN  AMERICA 

IT  is  a  gracious  paradox  of  Providence  that  Dorothy  Dix, 
Florence  Nightingale  and  Clara  Barton,  the  three 
women  of  the  world  who  have  nursed  more  dying  men 
and  have  healed  more  of  earth's  scourged  and  diseased  and 
sick  and  wounded  than  any  other,  should  all  have  outlived 
their  generation  and  attained  to  the  age  of  nearly  ninety. 

Florence  Nightingale  lives  to-day  in  her  eighty-eighth 
year,  and  has  just  been  accorded  the  freedom  of  the  city  of 
London,  though,  demanding  that  it  go  to  the  needy,  she  has 
refused  the  heroic  token  of  that  royal  ovation — the  golden 
casket. 

"If  I  could  give  you  information  of  my  life,"  she 
remarked,  ' '  it  would  be  to  show  how  a  woman  of  very  ordi- 
nary ability  has  been  led  by  God  in  strange  and  unaccus- 
tomed paths  to  do  in  His  service  what  He  has  done  in  mine, 
and  if  I  could  tell  you  all,  you  would  see  how  God  has  done 
all  and  I  nothing.  I  have  worked  hard,  very  hard,  that  is 
all;  and  I  have  never  refused  God  anything." 

Strangely  parallel,  as  we  have  seen,  was  the  working  idea 
of  Dorothy  Dix.  But  quite  as  identical  is  that  of  Clara 
Barton,  who  is  to-day^  eighty-eight  years  of  age. 

"You  have  never  known  me  without  work ;  while  able  you 
never  will,"  she  declares  in  one  of  her  home  messages  to 
her  friends.  '  *  It  has  always  been  a  part  of  the  best  religion 
I  had.     I  never  had  a  mission,  but  always  had  more  work 

Un  1909. 


150  MASTER    MINDS 

than  I  could  do  lying  before  me  waiting  to  be  done. ' ' 

So  to  Clara  Barton's  career  as  to  the  others  the  point  of 
departure  is  just  this — the  path  of  duty. 

She  came  by  it  naturally.  It  was  so  with  her  father.  In 
the  engagements  with  Indians  and  British,  Barton  left  his 
chimney-side  in  1793  for  the  side  of  "Mad"  Anthony 
Wayne  in  the  wilds  of  the  Northwestern  Territory  in 
Indiana  and  about  Detroit. 

The  tales  of  this  hero  father  fell  upon  the  tablets,  melted 
and  plastic,  of  Clara's  tender  mind  while  she  was  yet  under 
six  years  of  age.^  They  fell  not  coldly,  but  like  red-hot  iron 
upon  wax.  Unconsciously  but  deeply  even  in  those 
days  she  instinctively  became  a  little  sister  to  the  soldier. 

COURAGE  THROUGH  FEAR  OVERCOME 

The  truest  courage  lies  in  the  overcome  fear.  Such  cour- 
age was  Clara  Barton's.  She  did  not  make  one  of  the 
world's  greatest  trinity  of  nurses  because  she  was  mascu- 
line, because  she  was  devoid  of  a  woman's  sensitiveness,  but 
because  of  a  great  sensitiveness,  not  calloused,  but  chan- 


iThe  date  of  her  birth  was  1821 — Christmas  day.  Strange  to 
say,  most  of  the  biographical  notices  of  Clara  Barton,  even  such 
standard  ones  as  Appleton's  and  Harper's,  place  her  birth  in  1830, 
nine  years  afterwards.  In  a  letter  of  Sept.  30th,  Miss  Barton 
interestingly  remarks :  ' '  That  error  in  the  date  of  my  birth  has 
been  travelling  about  for  the  last  fifteen  years  or  more,  from  one 
biographical  sketch  to  another.  I  made  strenuous  efforts  to  correct 
and  set  it  right  when  my  attention  was  first  called  to  it,  but  it 
was  too  late;  it,  like  other  falsehoods,  had  gone  the  world  over.  The 
publishers  could  not  call  it  off,  and  met  me  with  polite,  good-natured 
pleasantness,  as  'the  mistake  was  all  in  my  favor;  if  other  persona 
did  not  object,  I  scarcely  needed  to;'  until  I  grew  discouraged  and 
gave  it  up,  excepting  to  state  the  truth  whenever  opportunity  pre- 
sented. 

"December  25,  1821,  according  to  the  calendar,  is  correct." 


S    o 
g  o 


z    2 


CLAKA   BARTON  151 

neled.  Indeed,  that  sensitiveness  in  her  earlier  years  was 
her  controlling:  passion.  Of  those  days  she  now  recalls, 
"I  remember  nothing  but  fear."  In  a  soul  that  was 
later  to  face  unflinchingly  fields  of  blood  and  have  shells 
tear  the  men  she  held  in  her  arms  into  fragments,  so  intense 
was  this  delicacy  of  feeling  that  the  accidental  sight  of  the 
butchering  of  an  ox  dropped  tlie  little  girl  to  the  barn-floor 
in  a  dead  faint,  and  ever  since,  owing  to  that  day,  she  has 
refused  the  taste  of  meat. 

In  overcoming  fear  lay  her  pathway  from  first  to  last. 

The  fear  of  horses,  for  instance,  at  the  age  of  five,  she 
controlled.  Out  in  the  Oxford  pastures,  when  her  brother 
David  bridled  half-broken  colts,  he  threw  her  on  one, 
jumped  on  the  other,  and  while  she  held  fast  to  the  mane, 
led  off  in  a  wild  gallop. 

"It  served  me  well.  To  this  day,"  she  writes  as  she 
looks  back,  ' '  my  seat  on  a  saddle  or  on  the  back  of  a  horse 
is  as  secure  and  tireless  as  in  a  rocking-chair,  and  far  more 
pleasurable.  Sometimes  in  later  years,  when  I  found 
myself  suddenly  on  a  strange  horse  in  a  trooper's  saddle, 
flying  for  Life  or  liberty  in  front  of  pursuit,  I  blessed  the 
baby-lessons  of  the  wild  gallop  among  the  beautiful  colts. ' ' 

As  to  the  explosion  of  the  mine  before  Petersburg,  ]\Iiss 
Barton  related  at  Worcester,  Sept.  21st,  1909,  to  the 
Twenty-first  Regiment,  which  had  made  Miss  Barton  a 
"comrade"  on  the  field,  the  following: 

"One  night  following  the  battle  of  the  mine,  there  was  a  party 
of  horsemen  rode  up  to  my  place.  They  drew  apart  and  talked 
among  themselves  for  five  minutes.  Now  and  then  they  looked  in 
my  direction,  I  noticed,  but  I  did  not  look  at  them.  One  of  them 
finally  stepped  out  of  the  party  and,  approaching  me,  said: 

"  'Miss  Barton,  I  have  some  bad  news.' 

"  'What  is  itr  I  said. 


152  MASTER    MINDS 

' '  '  The  mine  has  been  blown  up, '  said  he.  '  We  have  lost  a  great 
many  men,  and  Gardner  (a  friend  of  Miss  Barton)  was  among  them.' 

''  'Is  he  killed?'  I  asked. 

"  'Yes,'  said  he. 

"I  was  asked  if  I  wanted  to  go  to  the  mine,  and  said  yes,  and 
the  troop  of  horsemen  offered  to  accompany  me  there,  some  twenty 
miles,  but  I  said  that  one  would  be  enough.  It  was  a  fearful  night, 
and  late.  It  was  terribly  dark.  We  had  no  way  of  keeping  one 
another  in  sight,  except  for  our  horses. 

"One  horse,  which  was  mine,  was  black,  and  the  other  was  white. 
It  was  a  long  twenty-mile  ride.  The  thunder  was  terrific  and  the 
lightning  fearful.  When  the  lightning  came  we  were  able  to  distin- 
guish one  another  and  see  where  we  were  going.  The  rain  com- 
menced almost  immediately. 

' '  The  horses  became  frightened.  True  they  did  not  run,  but  they 
stopped  stock  still.  They  woidd  not  budge  an  inch.  They  stayed  in 
one  spot  there  for  three  or  four  hours  shivering  from  the  effects 
of  the  elements.  When  the  rain  subsided  and  the  daylight  came, 
we  resumed  our  way. 

' '  At  the  mine  we  found  everything  in  confusion.  There  were  a 
great  many  killed  there.  We  knew  they  were  there  at  the  mine,  but 
we  were  not  permitted  to  enter  where  they  were  then. ' ' 

Her  conscience  naturally  shared  this  general  sensitivity 
of  her  nature.  Concerning  an  early  accident  due  to  dis- 
obedience and  stealing  away  to  skate  on  Sunday,  she  con- 
fessed: "My  mental  suffering  far  exceeded  my  physical. 
I  despised  myself,  and  failed  to  sleep  or  eat. ' ' 

"Her  sensitive  nature  will  always  remain,"  was  the 
criterion  of  Fowler,  the  phrenologist  who  once  visited  her 
home.  "She  will  never  assert  herself  for  herself,  but  for 
others  she  will  be  perfectly  fearless."  In  fulfillment  of 
this  prophecy  is  her  own  admission  when  she  says :  "  To  this 
day  I  would  rather  stand  behind  the  lines  of  artillery  at 
Antietam  or  cross  the  pontoon  bridge  under  fire  at  Fred- 
ericksburg than  to  be  expected  to  preside  at  a  public  meet- 
ing." 


CLARA    BARTON  153 

Over  against  the  delicacy  of  such  a  temperament,  all  the 
greater,  as  we  proceed,  grows  upon  us  the  bravery  which, 
while,  on  the  one  hand,  it  demanded  in  the  midst  of  earth's 
worst  terrors  that  she  control  this  sensitivity,  yet,  on  the 
other  hand,  by  it  was  kept  sweet  and  feminine. 

With  this  delicacy  very  naturally  went  a  mental  keen- 
ness. So  searching  was  her  agile  mind  that  while  yet  a 
primary  pupil,  early  winter  mornings  she  awoke  her  sis- 
ters to  trace  places  on  the  map.  So  small  was  she  at  this 
time  that  she  had  to  be  lifted  up  and  carried  to  school 
through  the  snow-drifts  upon  her  brother 's  shoulders. 

When  eight  years  old,  she  entered  Colonel  Stone's 
Oxford  Plains  High  School. 

Back  home  again  but  a  little  bundle  of  nerves,  she  was 
wisely  left  for  a  while  to  the  development  that  comes  from 
life  out  of  doors  on  her  father's  three  hundred  acre  farm. 
Feeding  ducks,  milking  cows,  riding  saw-logs,  racing 
through  primeval  pines,  grinding  paint,  mixing  putty, 
hanging  paper,  in  this  industrial  training  and  in  the 
atmosphere  of  play  and  animal  pets,  lay  chapters  of  her 
education  fully  as  important  as  any  other. 

HER    POINT    OF    DEPARTUEE,    THE    PATH    OF    DUTY 

By  the  time  she  was  eleven,  her  brothers  had  caught  the 
mill-fever  and  engaged  in  building  mills  on  the  French 
River — first  saw-mills,  later  mills  for  the  manufacture  of 
satinet. 

It  happened  that  one  of  these  brothers,  David,  fell  at  a 
barn-raising  from  the  top  to  the  bottom.  Leeches  and 
bleeding  did  little  for  the  resulting  fever,  and  for  two 
years  Clara  gave  up  all  to  stay  by  her  brother's  side,  char- 
acteristically rendering  not  only  '^ first  aid,"  but  last  aid 


154  MASTER     31 INDS 

and  aid  all  the  time  "to  the  injured."  The  only  intervals 
of  relaxation  lay  in  the  reading  from  the  poems  of  Scott 
and  the  Great  Poets  of  England.  But  who  can  say  that 
this  which  seemed  from  an  educational  standpoint  a  wasted 
epoch,  was  not  the  pivotal  epoch  on  which  turned  her 
career,  the  epoch  in  which  she  discovered  herself  and  her 
genius  ? 

How  much  this  path  of  duty  proved  a  point  of  depart- 
ure to  her  destiny  as  one  of  the  world 's  three  Unveiled  Sis- 
ters of  Mercy,  God  only  knows. 

"It  was  an  accidental  turn,"  she  to-day  declares, 
but  '  *  an  accidental  turn  that  changed  my  entire  course. ' ' 

The  follo^ving  few  years  of  schooling  led  her  mind  up  to 
the  mysteries  of  chemistry,  Latin,  philosophy,  and  the 
usual  eye-opening  books  of  an  advanced  high  school.  Yet 
her  teachers'  personalities  were  the  chief  educational  asset, 
for  they  M^ere  sterling  worthies  as  rich  in  character  as  in 
instruction. 

Like  Lucy  Larcom,  though  not  like  her  because  she  had 
to,  Clara  Barton  democratically  and  voluntarily  joined  the 
group  of  American  girls  among  her  brothers'  mill-hands. 
Here  as  a  satinet- weaver  she  mastered  "tlie  evenly-drawn 
wai'p  and  the  swiftly-flying  shuttles." 

In  contrast  to  mill-life  the  Barton  home  was  the  centre 
of  culture  for  the  community,  a  roof-tree  for  visiting  lec- 
turers, literati  and  clergymen. 

' '  She  has  all  the  qualities  of  a '  teacher.  Give  her  a 
school  to  teach,"  was  the  advice  of  one  of  these. 

So  at  fifteen  she  began  to  teach  at  District  No.  9,  forty 
pupils,  some  of  whom  were  as  tall  as  their  teacher.  Like 
Dorothy  Dix,  to  look  older  she  lengthened  her  skirts  and 
put  up  her  hair.  Yet  whether  it  be  in  the  interpretation 
of  the  Beatitudes  before  school,  or  in  drilling  a  lesson  or 


CLARA    BARTON  155 

leading  in  play  at  recess,  she  awakened  a  chivalry  in  the 
noisiest  boys  that  won  the  day.  Even  by  them  her  depart- 
ure, at  the  age  of  fifteen,  after  the  all  too  quickly  ending 
year,  was  greeted  with  sobs.  In  similar  manner  the  teach- 
ing of  other  schools  followed  in  her  native  town. 

After  a  course  of  study  at  Clinton  Liberal  Institute,  New 
York,  Miss  Barton  followed  up  her  successful  school  ven- 
ture by  a  harder  test  at  Bordentown,  New  Jersey.  Great 
prejudice  existed  against  a  free  school.  "A  pack  of  row- 
dies," was  up  to  this  time  the  verdict  of  the  people.  Men 
teachers  had  failed;  how  could  she  succeed?  Failure 
beforehand  was  predicted. 

Nevertheless  she  volunteered  to  give  her  services  for  three 
months,  just  to  show  that  she  could  do  it. 

Herein  was  her  stock  principle  of  success.  Appearing  in 
the  midst  of  others '  failure,  she  converted  doubters  by  show- 
ing not  ivords,  but  a  way. 

Six  pupils  in  a  crazy  shack  of  a  school-room  she  in- 
creased in  a  year's  time  to  six  hundred  pupils  in  a 
large  edifice  erected  for  her.  Bordentown 's  streets  became 
filled  not  with  idle  and  vicious  children  as  before,  but  with 
hundreds  of  attendants  upon  a  model  school. 

In  1854  recommended  to  the  Commissioner  of  the  United 
States  Patent  Office,  the  next  epoch  of  her  life  takes  her  to 
Washington,  D.  C.  The  several  years  she  remained  here 
she  was  indispensable  not  only  for  her  business  ability,  but 
because  of  her  honor,  a  quality  greatly  needed  at  that  time, 
owing  to  the  stealing  of  inventions  by  employees. 

The  male  clerks,  to  whose  eyes  she  was  an  interloper, 
ranged  themselves  in  rows  each  day,  leaning  against  the 
walls,  whistling  softly  as  eyes  on  the  ground  and,  uneon- 
quered,  she  passed  by.  Day  after  day  she  ran  the  gauntlet 
till  the  bolder  clerks,  venturing  lying  slanders,  were  dis- 


156  MASTERMINDS 

missed,  "for  the  good  of  the  service,"   as  ring-leaders  of 
disorder. 

"what  is   money  IP  I  HAVE  NO  COUNTRY?" 

In  1861  came  the  war. 

The  Government  was  financially  embarrassed.  Could  she 
help  ?  Yes ;  she  could  give  up  her  salary  for  her  country 
and  do,  unpaid,  the  additional  work  of  two  disloyal  clerks 
as  an  act  of  patriotic  free  grace. 

To  the  querulousness  of  friends  who  demurred  at  her 
generosity,  she  answered,  several  years  later:  "What  is 
money  if  I  have  no  country  ? ' ' 

In  the  spirit  of  this  rejoinder  she  was  now  to  act.  She 
met  at  the  train  the  wounded  from  the  first  clash  at  Balti- 
more, supplied  the  men  mth  food,  and  from  the  Pres- 
ident's desk  in  the  Senate  Chamber,  where  they  were  quar- 
tered, acquainted  them  with  the  bulletins  of  the  fight  from 
which  they  had  come. 

The  letters  home  of  the  soldiers  soon  overflowed  her 
rooms  with  supplies,  which  she  transferred  to  warehouses. 

Filled  with  heartaches  at  the  news  and  scenes  from  the 
front,  she  left  Washington  and  hastened  to  her  father's 
Massachusetts  home  in  Worcester  County,  where  she  con- 
fided her  resolve  to  go  personally  to  their  aid,  and  elicited 
this  reply  from  the  old  veteran : 

"Go,  if  it  is  your  duty  to  go.  I  know  what  soldiers  are, 
and  that  every  true  soldier  will  respect  you  and  your 
errand. ' ' 

But  the  wounded  men  on  Potomac  boats  stirred  her  to  go 
beyond  the  lines. 

"No  place  for  a  woman!"  This  curt  prohibition  con- 
fronted her.  Red-tape  blocked  her  way.  Point-blank  the 
officers  refused  to  let  her  cross  the  lines. 


Claiia  Bauton 

(From  tlie  portrait  takeii  of  lier  in  her  regulation  field  costume  at  the  height 

of  her  service  in  the  Civil  War,  and  authorized  by  her) 


CLARA   BARTON  157 

Going  straight  to  the  Assistant  Quartermaster  General  of 
the  army,  she  described  the  swamps  of  Chickahominy, 
where  soldiers  were  weltering  in  their  own  blood,  which 
dried  npon  unattended  wounds  already  quite  matted  with 
mud  and  filth.  In  tears,  he  gave  his  consent  and  supplied 
transportation. 

Leaving  organized  circles  of  women  at  the  Capitol,  at  the 
front  Clara  Barton  entered  the  lines — alone. 

''the  angel  of  the  battlefield  " 

Through  the  eyes  of  her  contemporary,  Lucy  Larcom, 
"we  may  look  back  and  catch  a  glimpse  of  her  in  the  dark- 
ness of  the  rainy  midnight  bending  over  a  dying  boy,  who 
took  her  supporting  arm  and  soothing  voice  for  his  sister's; 
or  falling  into  a  brief  sleep  on  the  wet  ground  in  her  tent, 
almost  under  the  feet  of  flying  cavalry ;  or  riding  in  on  her 
train  of  army-wagons  toward  another  field,  subduing  by 
the  way  a  band  of  mutinous  teamsters  into  her  firm  friends 
and  allies;  or  at  the  terrible  Battle  of  Antietam  (where  the 
regular  army  supplies  did  not  arrive  till  three  days  after- 
ward), furnishing  from  her  wagons  cordials  and  bandages 
for  the  wounded,  making  gruel  for  the  fainting  men  from 
the  meal  in  which  her  medicines  had  been  packed,  extract- 
ing with  her  own  hand  a  bullet  from  the  cheek  of  a 
wounded  soldier,  tending  the  fallen  all  day,  with  her  throat 
parched  and  her  face  blackened  by  sulphurous  smoke ;  and 
at  night  when  the  surgeons  were  dismayed  at  finding  them- 
selves left  with  only  one  half-burnt  candle  amid  thousands 
of  bleeding,  dying  men,  illuminating  the  field  with  candles 
and  lanterns  her  forethought  had  supplied.  No  wonder 
they  called  her  '  The  Angel  of  the  Battlefield. ' 

""We  may  see  her  at  Fredericksburg  attending  to  the 
wounded  who  were  brought  to  her,  whether  they  were  the 


15S  MASTERMINDS 

blue  or  the  ^ay.  One  rebel  officer,  whose  death  agonies  she 
soothed,  besought  her  with  his  last  breath  not  to  cross  the 
river,  betraying  to  her  that  the  movements  of  the  rebels 
were  only  a  ruse  to  draw  the  Union  troops  on  to  destruc- 
tion. It  is  needless  to  say  that  she  followed  the  soldiers 
across  the  Rappahannock,  undaunted  by  the  dying  man's 
warning.  And  we  may  watch  her  after  the  defeat,  when 
the  half-starved,  half-frozen  soldiers  were  brought  to  her, 
having  great  fires  built  to  lay  them  around,  administering 
cordials  and  causing  an  old  chimney  to  be  pulled  down  for 
bricks  to  heat  and  warm  them  with,  while  she  herself  had 
but  the  shelter  of  a  tattered  tent  between  her  and  the 
piercing  winds." 

Such  were  the  times  when  her  gown  was  dyed  with  the 
blood  of  fallen  soldiers  whom  she  again  and  again  raised  to 
administer  cordial  to  their  lips. 

At  Fort  Wagner's  siege,  ill  in  a  tent,  she  was  begged  to 
retire  to  Port  Royal.  Fifteen  hundred  men  had  fallen  in 
an  hour.  There  was  no  good  water.  It  was  fiercely  hot. 
The  air  was  heavy  with  malaria.  IMorris  Island,  a  grave- 
yard, was  occupied  successively  by  Southern  and  Union 
troops,  and  raked  by  all  the  forts,  including  Sumter  and 
Wagner. 

"Do  you  think  I  will  leave  here  during  a  bombardment?" 
she  replied.  There  she  stood  her  ground,  bandaging  and 
saving  from  death  all  she  could,  whether  bleeding  generals 
dragging  the  stump  of  shot-off  legs,  or  slaves  with  arms 
torn  to  shreds. 

General  Voris  of  Ohio  thus  recalls  his  final  deliverance 
at  her  hands : 

' '  I  was  shot  with  an  enfield  cartridge  within  one  hundred 
and  fifty  yards  of  the  fort,  and  so  disabled  that  I  could  not 
go  forward.     I  was  in    an    awful    predicament,  perfectly 


CLARA    BARTON  159 

exposed  to  canister  from  Waprncr  and  shell  from  Oreprs  and 
Sumter  in  front  ajid  the  enfilade  from  James  Island.  I 
tried  to  dig  a  trench  in  the  sand  with  my  sabre,  into  which 
I  migrht  crawl,  bnt  the  dry  sand  would  fall  back  in  my  face 
about  as  fast  as  I  could  scrape  it  out  with  my  narrow  imple- 
ment. Failing:  in  this,  on  all  fours  I  crawled  toward  the 
lee  of  the  beach.  A  charf^re  of  canister  all  around  me 
aroused  my  reverie  to  thoujjhts  of  aetion.  I  worked  my 
way  back  on  hands  and  loiees  like  a  turtle  for  two  hundred 
yards. ' ' 

Found  and  carried  to  shelter  he  awoke,  he  recalls,  as 
from  a  rapturous  dream  of  his  wife  soothing  his  pain,  to  see 
Clara  Barton  bathing  his  temples  and  fanning  his  fevered 
face.  With  his  leg  shot  away,  but  for  her  he  would  have 
died. 

It  is  the  observation  of  another  general  that  Miss  Barton, 
rather  than  abandon  a  desperately  wounded  boy,  once  came 
very  near  falling  into  the  hands  of  the  enemy.  The  inci- 
dent occurred  at  the  retreat  of  Pope  during  the  several 
days'  fighting  at  the  second  Battle  of  Bull  Run. 

"Miss  Barton  was  about  stepping  on  the  last  car  convey- 
ing the  wounded  from  the  field,  with  the  enemy 's  cavalry  in 
sight  and  shot  and  shell  from  their  guns  falling  into  our  dis- 
ordered ranks,  when  a  soldier  told  her  there  was  left 
behind  in  the  pine  bushes,  where  he  had  fallen,  a  wounded 
young  soldier  that  could  not  live,  and  that  he  was  calling 
for  his  mother. 

"She  followed  her  guide  to  where  the  boy  lay.  It  was 
growing  dark  and  rainy.  She  raised  him  up  and  quietly 
soothed  him.  "When  he  heard  her  voice,  he  said  in  his 
delirium :  *  Oh,  my  mother  has  come.  Don 't  leave  me  to  die 
in  these  dark  woods  alone.  Do  stay  with  me.  Don't 
leave  me. ' 


160  MASTER    MINDS 

''At  that  moment  an  officer  cried  out  to  her:  'Come 
immediately  or  yon  will  fall  into  the  hands  of  the  rebels. 
They  are  on  us.' 

"'Well,  take  this  boy!'  'No,'  said  the  officer;  'there 
is  no  transportation  for  dying:  men ;  we  have  hardly  room 
for  the  living.     Come  quick ! ' 

* '  '  Then  I  will  stay  with  this  poor  boy ;  we  both  go  or  both 
stay!' 

' '  Both  were  therefore  taken  on  the  car  and  the  wounded 
boy  carried  to  one  of  the  "Washington  hospitals,  where 
his  New  England  mother  found  him,  nursed  him  and  closed 
his  eyes  in  death." 

Years  later,  at  the  time  of  the  Charleston^  earth- 
quake, she  reviewed  the  old-time  battle-scenes  off 
Morris  Island  by  the  side  of  the  very  Southern 
officer  who  had  raked  the  Northern  army  with 
shot  and  shell.  Just  afterwards  with  the  same  hand 
that  under  the  impulse  of  the  moment  she  had 
shortly  before  joined  with  the  officer's,  she  wrote  this  mis- 
sive, to  go  to  the  reunion  of  the  Yates  Phalanx  of  Illinois: 
"Tell  them  as  I  stood  in  the  dismantled  dome  of  Charles- 
ton Orphan  House  and  looked  over  the  bay  upon  the  glit- 
tering sands  of  Morris  Island,  I  found  us  all  there  again; 
and  that  in  memor^^  I  saw  the  bayonets  glisten ;  the 
'swamp  angel'  threw  her  bursting  bombs,  the  fleet  thun- 
dered its  cannonade,  and  the  little  dark  line  of  blue  trailed 
its  way  in  the  dark  to  the  belching  walls  of  Wagner.  Tell 
them  from  me  what  you  will  not  of  yourself,  that  I  saw 
them  on,  up  and  over  the  parapets  into  the  jaws  of  death, 
and  heard  the  clang  of  the  death-dealing  sabres  as  they 
grappled  with  the  foe.     I  saw  the  ambulances  laden  with 


iSouth  Carolina. 


CLABA   BARTON  161 

a^ony  and  the  wounded  slowly  crawling  to  me  down  the 
tide-washed  beach,  Voris  and  Cumminger  gaspinj?  in  their 
blood;  heard  the  deafeninof  clatter  of  the  hoofs  of  'Old 
Sam'  as  Elwell  madly  p-alloped  np  under  the  walls  of  the 
fort  for  orders.  I  heard  the  tender,  wailing:  fife,  the 
muffled  drum  and  the  last  shots  as  the  pitiful  little  graves 
grew  thick  in  the  shifting  sands ! " 

But  to  follow  Clara  Barton  through  the  scenes  and  crises 
through  which  she  passed  in  the  Civil  "War  would  be  to 
reproduce  many  of  the  campaigns  themselves.^ 

Suffice  it  to  say  that  her  post  always  lay  at  the  front  and 
that  she  remained  always  the  same,  "The  Angel  of  the 
Battlefield." 

In  1864  General  Butler  placed  her  as  head  of  the  nurses 
of  the  hospitals  in  the  Army  of  the  James. 

After  the  war,  bushels  of  letters  asking  for  missing  men 
led  her  to  assuage  grief  at  many  thousands  of  homes  by 
organizing  her  kindly  service  into  the  system  of  the 
"Bureau  of  Records  for  Missing  Men." 

At  Andersonville  alone,  all  but  four  hundred  of  thir- 
teen thousand  graves  were  identified. 

It  was  in  the  midst  of  this  errand  of  mercy  that,  scolded 
by  friends  at  her  expenditure  of  her  own.  she  quietly  said : 
"What  is  money,  if  I  have  no  country?" 

Four  years  Miss  Barton  devoted  to  this  Bureau. 

In  1869  rest  in  the  Alps  proved  not  a  "quitting  the  mor- 


iThe  battlefields  in  the  American  Civil  War  where  Miss  Barton  was 
most  active  included:  Cedar  Mountain,  Antietam,  Fredericksburg, 
the  siege  of  Charleston  (where  she  served  eight  months),  Morris 
Island,  Fort  Wagner,  Petersburg,  about  Eichmond,  and  in  the  battles 
of  the  Wilderness.  In  addition  to  these  are  the  European  wars, 
the   Spanish  War,  and  the   great  national   disasters. 

11 


162  MASTERMINDS 

tal  career,"  for  at  this  time  there  burst  upon  Europe  the 
horrors  of  the  Franco-Prussian  War  (1870).  Against  its 
bloodshed  a  great  vision  opened  to  Clara  Barton.  It  was 
the  Red  Cross. 

Five  years  before,  the  Red  Cross  Society  had  been 
founded  at  Geneva,  its  object  the  lessening  of  war's  hor- 
rors by  rendering  neutral,  surgeons,  chaplains,  the  wounded 
and  their  bearers,  also  hospitals  and  supplies.  The  United 
States  was  not  among  the  signatory  powers. 

This  fact  stabbed  her  heart  with  pain  she  could  not  for- 
get. But  at  the  battlefields  of  the  Franco-Prussian  War 
Miss  Barton's  strong  executive  hand  and  organizing  brain 
found  plenty  to  do.  The  twenty  thousand  homeless  at  capit- 
ulated Strasburg  she  cared  for  and  furnished  forty  thou- 
sand garments.  Hundreds  of  demoralized  women  groveling 
in  cellars  she  brought  out  again  to  the  light.  With  the 
Grand  Duchess  Louise  of  Baden,  who  had  turned  her  castles 
into  hospitals,  she  became  a  co-worker. 

The  decorations  of  the  Golden  Cross  of  Baden  were 
pinned  on  her  breast  by  the  Grand  Duchess,  and  the  Iron 
Cross  of  Germany  by  the  Emperor,  her  father,  a  decoration 
given  only  to  the  brave  in  battle.  These  with  the  Servian 
Red  Cross  presented  by  Queen  Natalie  of  Servia,  together 
with  jeweled  decorations  from  the  Crown  of  Spain,  the  Sul- 
tan of  Turkey,  the  Czar  of  Russia,  the  government  of  Bel- 
gium, and  many  others,  are  among  the  many  outward  tokens 
by  which  Clara  Barton  recalls  these  battlefields  of  the 
world. 

She  was  at  the  storming  of  Metz  and  with  the  wounded  at 
Sedan.  She  also  distributed  food  at  the  Commune  in  Paris 
(1871-2)  when  in  a  riot,  though  the  mob  overcame  the  po- 
lice, they  greeted  her  with  the  acclamation : 

"God!     It  is  an  angel. " 


CLARA    BARTON  163 

TIER   VISION    OF   THE  RED   CROSS 

But  throiio'h  it  all,  in  the  ligrht  of  the  revolution  it  had 
effected  as  to  the  wounded  in  war,  nothinj:^  could  erase  from 
Clara  Barton's  consciousness  the  Red  Cross.  It  came  up 
before  her  as  especially  vivid  as  she  saw  its  absence  in 
America.  In  the  whole  world,  indeed,  previous  to  the 
treaty  of  Geneva,  the  wounded  had  no  rights;  neither  had 
the  sick.  This  was  a  factor  of  even  more  crv'ing  significance, 
for  even  up  to  the  late  Japanese  War,  ten  deaths  from 
disease  to  one  of  violence  is  the  ratio  of  fatalities. 

Now,  by  this  treat}',  the  sick  as  well  as  the  wounded  and 
their  attendants,  under  the  Red  Cross  flag,  were  equally 
neutral,  and  subject  to  the  same  care  the  captors  gave  their 
own. 

At  the  time  of  this  vision  of  the  Red  Cross  which  thus 
arose,  "I  thought,"  said  Miss  Barton,  "of  the  Peninsular 
Campaign,  of  Pittsburg  Landing,  Cedar  Mountain,  and  Sec- 
ond Bull  Run,  Antietam,  old  Fredericksburg  with  its  acres 
of  snow-covered  and  gun-covered  glacis  and  its  fourth-day 
flag  of  truce,  of  its  dead,  and  starving,  wounded,  frozen  to 
the  ground,  and  our  commissions,  and  their  supplies  in 
Washington  with  no  effective  organization  or  power  to  go 
beyond ;  of  the  Petersburg  mine  with  its  four  thousand  dead 
and  wounded  and  no  flag  of  truce,  the  wounded  broiling  in 
a  July  sun,  the  dead  bodies  putrefying  where  they  fell.  As 
I  saw  the  work  of  these  Red  Cross  societies  in  the  field, 
accomplishing  in  four  months  under  their  systematic 
organization  what  we  failed  to  accomplish  in  four  years 
without  it — no  mistakes,  no  needless  suffering,  no  waste,  no 
confusion,  but  order,  plenty,  cleanliness,  and  comfort  wher- 
ever that  little  flag  made  its  way,  a  whole  continent  mar- 
shaled under  the  banner  of  the  Red  Cross, — as  I  saw  all 


164  MASTER     MINDS 

this  and  joined  and  worked  in  it,  you  will  not  wonder  that 
I  said  to  myself: 

"  'If  I  live  to  return  to  my  country,  I  will  try  to  make 
my  people  understand  the  Red  Cross  and  that  treaty.'  But 
I  did  more  than  resolve ;  I  promised  other  nations  I  would 
do  it,  and  other  reasons  pressed  me  to  remember  it." 

Several  years  of  suffering  came  as  an  inevitable  reaction 
from  the  American  and  European  campaigns.  Nearly  one 
year  Miss  Barton  lay  bedridden  in  the  fogs  and  smoke  of 
London.  Back  to  America  in  1873  to  lie  two  years  more 
a  helpless  invalid,  she  forgot  the  use  of  her  limbs  in  walking. 
She  may  have  forgotten  how  to  walk,  yet  the  purpose  and 
the  promise  to  establish  the  Red  Cross  in  America  she 
never  forgot. 

At  her  recovery,  anxiously  backed  from  abroad  by  the 
members  of  the  International  Committee  of  Geneva  as  the 
last  hope,  she  was  able  in  1876,  with  letters  from  its  Presi- 
dent, to  lay  the  matter  before  the  United  States  Govern- 
ment, but  without  success. 

Then  ensued  five  years  of  hard,  incessant  labor  on  her 
part  before  it  ended  in  persuading  the  government  to  join 
the  thirty-one  great  states  of  the  world  that  had  signed  the 
Red  Cross  treaty  of  Geneva.  Upon  the  refusal  of  the  Cab- 
inet at  Washington  to  adhere  to  the  Geneva  Convention,  on 
the  21st  of  May,  1881,  Miss  Barton  called  a  meeting  at  the 
Capitol.  On  the  9th  of  June  she  summoned  a  second  meet- 
ing, solemnly  setting  forth  the  critical  question  of  the  Red 
Cross  for  America.  The  same  day  President  Garfield 
made  Miss  Barton  President  of  the  Society  for  the  United 
States. 

In  March,  1882,  President  Arthur  signed  the  treaty  of 
Geneva.  Clara  Barton  thus  became  the  founder  of  the  Red 
Cross  in  America.     At  once  adopted   by  the    Senate    and 


CLARA   BARTON  165 

ratified  by  the  International  Congress  at  Berne,  it 
entrenched  forever  the  Red  CroSvS  in  this  country. 

Referring  to  the  linking  of  tlie  United  States  to  the  chain 
of  international  societies  of  the  Red  Cross,  the  President  of 
that  assembly,  at  Geneva,  September  2,  1882,  thus  charac- 
terized the  event:  ''Its  vi^hole  history  is  associated  with  a 
name  already  known  to  you — that  of  Miss  Clara  Barton. 
Without  the  energy  and  perseverance  of  this  remarkable 
woman,  we  should  not  for  a  long  time  have  had  the  pleasure 
of  seeing  the  Red  Cross  received  in  the  United  States. ' ' 

In  the  United  Stales  but  four  lines  in  an  obs<3ure  comer 
of  the  Washington  Press  proclaimed  the  event.  But  in 
Europe  the  streets  of  the  cities  of  France,  Germany,  Swtz- 
erland  and  Spain  blazed  with  celebrant  bonfires.  There 
afresh  they  had  learned  in  suffering  what  they  ' '  taught  in 
song. ' '  The  United  States  was  yet,  as  to  the  Red  Cross,  to 
learn  its  lesson.  Here  the  Red  Cross,  so  obscure  at  first, 
was  not  to  grow  upon  the  people  until  it  rushed  to  the 
relief  of  National  disasters  and  later  to  its  work  in  the 
Spanish- American  War, 

Disasters  soon  came.  But  before  them,  for  a  year,  by 
request  of  the  Governor,  Miss  Barton's  hand  and  head  were 
needed  for  double  duty  at  the  Reformatory  for  Women  at 
Sherborn,  ]\Iassachusetts. 

There  convicted  outcasts  fell  under  the  spell  of  her  per- 
sonality, a  good  example  of  which  occurred  when,  for 
instance,  an  inmate  pushed  her  way  out  of  the  bushes  in  the 
garden  where  she  had  been  put  to  work,  startling  Miss  Bar- 
ton to  demand :  ' '  What  is  it  ? " 

"I  heard  you  coming,"  was  the  only  reply,  "and  I  just 
wanted  to  look  at  you ! ' ' 

Taking  the  place  of  superintendent  of  a  State  institution 
with  hundreds  of  convicts,  doing  the  work  of  the  man  secre- 


166  MASTERMINDS 

tSLiy  and  treasurer  in  addition,  as  in  all  the  confusing 
accounts  that  came  in  war  and  disaster,  Miss  Barton's  bud- 
get was  found  to  tally  to  a  detail. 


THE  RED  CROSS  IN  NATIONAL  DISASTERS 

Soon  began  the  train  of  national  disasters  which  brought 
the  Red  Cross  into  greatness  in  America.  In  the  year  of 
1881  occurred  the  Michigan  forest-fires,  when  a  large  section 
of  the  State  was  afire.  As  President  of  the  Red  Cross,  Miss 
Barton  acted  at  once,  readiness  being  the  watchword  of  her 
organization. 

Starting  as  usual  with  the  contents  of  her  own  purse,  she 
occupied  the  field  through  her  agent.  Dr.  Hubbell,  who  later 
became  a  field  veteran  in  every  catastrophe,  and  remains  a 
veteran  yet  by  her  side  to-day. 

Miss  Barton  first  awoke  the  Senators  to  the  situation  and 
then  she  filled  the  press  with  broadsides.  Society  at  large 
she  thus  got  well  under  way  to  forward  field  relief  and 
supplies  to  the  stricken  State. 

On  the  ashes  of  this  disaster  the  Red  Cross  arose  afiame 
with  recognition  and  fame. 

In  1883,  while  still  at  Sherborn,  came  the  floods  of  the 
Mississippi  and  Ohio,  met  also  through  Red  Cross  agencies. 

In  1884  came  still  greater  floods  in  the  Ohio  and  Missis- 
sippi valleys.  To  these  Miss  Barton  went  in  person,  with 
a  force  of  efficient  help,  chartering  steamers,  of  which  she 
took  command  herself.  She  plied  the  swollen  waters  with 
supplies  of  relief  to  people  from  Cincinnati  to  New  Orleans, 
feeding  the  hungiy,  clothing  the  nailed,  and  rescuing  the 
stock  left  to  starve  on  the  banks  and  levees.  Later,  as  the 
water  subsided,  she  sheltered  the  thousands  of  homeless. 


CLARA    BARTON  167 

Ready  money  for  instant  relief,  no  paid  officers,  no 
solicited  funds,  no  red  tape,  instantaneous  action, — with 
these  fundamental  principles,  quick  steps  could  be  at  once 
taken.  This  system  it  was  that  allowed  Miss  Barton  in  her 
chartered  steamer,  piled  to  the  hurricane-deck  with  sup- 
plies, to  rim  down  the  swollen  Ohio,  feed  victims  at  second- 
story  windows,  and  clothe  and  give  fuel  to  thousands 
"wringing  their  hands  on  a  frozen  fireless  shore."  From 
side  to  side,  from  village  to  village,  steamed  the  relief-boat 
for  eight  thousand  miles,  distributing  one  hundred  seventy- 
five  thousand  dollars'  worth  of  supplies,  leaving  the 
drowned-out  inhabitants  agape  with  wonder  and  tear- 
stained  with  gratitude.  For  months  Miss  Barton  kept  her 
boats  plying  to  and  fro,  ministering  to  the  malarial,  the 
homeless  and  the  sick,  and  scattering  among  them  ten  thou- 
sand dollars'  worth  of  seeds  and  implements  with  which 
they  might  start  again. 

Following  the  example  of  St.  Louis  and  Chicago,  relief 
circles  everywhere  formed,  even  groups  of  children,  all 
sharing  the  contagious  passion  to  join  the  work  of  relief. 

' '  All  the  country  knows  what  you  have  done,  and  is  more 
than  satisfied, ' '  wrote  the  United  States  Secretary  of  State. 

Tbus  awakened  at  last  to  the  scope  and  greatness  of  the 
Red  Cross,  in  1884  the  nation  appointed  four  delegates  to 
the  International  Red  Cross  Conference  at  Geneva. 

In  1885  midwinter  startled  the  country  by  drawing  back 
the  curtain  upon  many  thousands  of  American  people  on 
the  verge  of  starvation  in  Texas.  Lured  to  settle  by  a  rail- 
road which  had  muzzled  the  press,  these  settlers  were  left  to 
die  in  cold,  famine  and  wretchedness.  In  person  Miss  Bar- 
ton visited  the  stricken  district,  then  appeared  before  the 
editors  of  the  Dallas  papers,  who  confessed  they  had  been 
blinded,  and  stood  aghast  at   her   expos^.     They  at   once 


168  MASTERMINDS 

struck  off  a  new  edition  of  the  evening  papers  embodying 
her  exposure,  and  as  a  result  one  hundred  thousand  dollars 
rolled  in  for  the  relief  of  the  sufferers. 

In  1887  the  International  Red  Cross  at  Geneva  again 
called  the  attention  of  the  United  States  to  the  Fourth 
International  Conference  to  be  held  at  Carlsruhe  by  invita- 
tion of  the  Grand  Duke  and  Grand  Duchess  of  Baden. 
Delegates  were  sent,  always  of  course  as  a  necessity,  includ- 
ing Miss  Barton  as  the  indispensable  "esprit  de  corps." 

In  1888  cyclones  at  Mt.  Vernon,  Illinois,  found  Miss  Bar- 
ton on  the  field  even  while  the  inhabitants  stood  yet  dazed 
and  stupefied. 

' '  The  pitiless  snow  is  falling  on  the  heads  of  three  thou- 
sand people  who  are  without  homes,  without  food  or  cloth- 
ing and  without  money ! ' ' 

This  message  vibrating  on  the  wires  from  Illinois  from 
Clara  Barton  was  enough  to  accumulate  almost  instantly 
ninety  thousand  dollars'  worth  of  supplies. 

Now  came  a  new  call.  Yellow  fever  broke  out  in  Florida 
and  led  Miss  Barton  at  once  to  organize  immime  nurses  and 
physicians  to  see  the  dying  through,  and  speed  in  a  special 
train  from  place  to  place  till  the  epidemic  had  died  out. 
Thousands  were  saved.  To  get  to  the  plague-spots  Miss 
Barton's  determined  band  went  on  and  through,  even  if  it 
demanded  riding  in  dirt-cars  over  dangerous  trestles. 

Sunday  morning,  the  30th  of  May,  1889,  the  country  was 
shocked  by  the  breaking  in  Pennsylvania  of  the  dam  above 
Johnstown,  leaving  four  thousand  dead  and  thirty  thousand 
unfed  and  homeless  in  the  gutted  bed  of  the  reservoir's 
spent  torrent. 

For  five  months,  with  an  expenditure  of  one  half  a  mil- 
lion in  supplies  and  money.  Miss  Barton  remained  at  the 
stricken  centre   of  industry,  always  working  in   harmony 


CLARA   BARTON  169 

with  the  main  State  relief  appointed  by  the  Governor, 
which  distributed  six  and  a  half  millions  in  money.  She 
had  made  her  way  there  over  washed-out  gullies,  broken 
engines  and  mud-banked  highways  only  to  find  the  Gen- 
eral in  charge  wondering  "what  a  poor  lone  woman  could 
do." 

She  answered,  as  always,  not  in  words,  but  in  actions. 

Six  huge  and  hastily  erected  buildings  became  Red  Cross 
"hotels."  Twenty-five  thousand  persons  were  received. 
Another  even  more  mammoth  "hotel"  was  raised.  Two 
hundred  and  eleven  thousand  dollars  was  in  all  distributed 
in  supplies,  and  thirty-nine  thousand  dollars  in  money, 
leaving  no  single  case  of  unrelieved  suffering.^ 

RUSSIA 

Now  the  Red  Cross  was  drawn  from  home  disasters  to 
extend  "hands  across  the  sea."  By  failure  of  crops  in 
Russia  in  1891  a  million  square  miles  were  without  harvest 
owing  to  crop  failures.  Thirty-nine  million  people  were 
famine-stricken !  Even  at  this  news  the  House  of  Repre- 
sentatives defeated  a  bill  for  an  appropriation.  But  the 
Red  Cross  took  up  the  fallen  cause.  Societies  everywhere 
responded.  The  Elks  initiated  the  largesses.  Then  a  spirit 
of  relief  swept  the  country.  Pennsylvania  sent  a  ship 
from  Philadelphia.  The  Christian  Herald  sent  a  ship's 
cargo  in  its  own  vessel.  Iowa  shipped  one  hundred  seven- 
teen thousand  bushels  of  com  and  one  hundred  thousand 
pounds  of  flour  in  a  British  steamer  to  Riga,  and  to  Riga 


lA  broach  and  pendant  of  diamonds  the  people  of  Johnstown 
presented  Miss  Barton  as  an  outward  token  of  her  memorable  ser- 
vice. These  lie  among  the  collection  of  other  rich  jewels  and  in- 
signia. 


170  MASTERMINDS 

to  distribute  these  argosies  of  grain  proceeded  the  Red 
Cross  field  officer,  Dr.  Hubbell. 

August  28th,  1893,  a  hurricane  and  tidal  wave  submerged 
the  Port  Royal  Islands,  sixteen  feet  below  the  surface,  off 
South  Carolina.  Five  thousand  negroes  were  drowned  and 
thirty  thousand  left  without  homes,  which,  as  they  moaned, 
were  "done  gone"  or  "ractified. " 

The  Governor  of  South  Carolina  called  the  Red  Cross, 
and  for  ten  months,  endeared  to  the  stricken  natives  as 
"Miss  Clare,"  Miss  Barton  presided  over  operations  in  the 
field.  From  fifteen  to  twenty  thousand  refugees  who  had 
flocked  to  one  place  she  re-distributed.  Immediate  wants  of 
food  and  clothes  once  relieved,  to  reconstruct  society  fell 
to  her  also,  a  thing  which  she  did,  backed  by  one  million 
feet  of  pine  lumber,  quantities  of  seed  for  replanting,  and 
thirty  thousand  dollars  in  money.  Altogether  Miss  Barton 
rehoused  and  rehabilitated  in  society  thirty  thousand  sur- 
vivors ! 

' '  Miss  Clare  ? ' '  pleaded  one  darkey. — The  rest  he  enacted 
with  action  eloquent  in  pathos  as  he  pulled  up  a  ragged 
sleeve  disclosing  an  ugly  scar. 

"Wagner?"  exclaimed  Miss  Barton. 

*  *  Yes,  you  drissed  that  for  me  that  night  I  crawled  down 
the  beach.  I  was  with  Colonel  Shaw;  you  drissed  our 
wounz ! ' ' 

ARMENIA 

In  1895  and  1896  came  the  Armenian  massacres  in 
Asiatic  Turkey. 

A  large  fund  was  forthcoming  and  ready  to  be  distrib- 
uted from  England  and  America. 

But  how  and  by  whom?  All  eyes  turned  to  the  Red 
Cross. 


CLARA    BARTON  171 

The  butchered  could  not  be  brought  back  to  life.  But  in 
the  regions  burnt  and  i-aided  by  Kurds  thousands  of  human 
beings  were  starving  and  tens  of  thousands  orphaned  and 
helpless. 

They  could  go  to  these. 

The  International  Red  Cross  alone  could  reach  a  zone  so 
jealous  of  interference  of  other  nations.  iV^o^t-political,  wow- 
sectarian — it  could  enter  where  an  army  could  not.  So  it 
was  thought  by  all.  Yet  suspicious  of  political  intrigue 
and  interference,  word  came  from  the  authorities  in  Turkey 
that  "not  even  so  reputable  an  organization  as  the  Red 
Cross ' '  would  be  allowed  to  enter  Turkey.  But  trusting  in 
the  strength  of  the  treat^^,  which  she  understood  so  well, 
and  her  confidence  in  the  power  and  the  humanity  of 
national  governments,  the  risk  was  taken  and  she  went  for- 
ward. 

"We  honor  your  position  and  your  wishes  shall  be 
respected.  Such  aid  and  protection  as  w^e  are  able  we  shall 
render. ' ' 

So  said  Tewfik  Pasha,  and  the  pledge  was  never  broken. 

Five  great  expeditions  the  Red  Cross  sent  through  Arme- 
nian Turkey,  from  sea  to  sea,  distributing,  repairing,  heal- 
ing, settling  in  homes  and  enhousing  villagers. 

Yet  they  were  not  through.  A  plague  of  small-pox  was 
destroying  thousands  at  Marash  and  Zeitoon.  One  hun- 
dred a  day  were  dying.  In  response  to  the  plea  of  the 
British  Embassy  in  Constantinople,  the  Red  Cross  started  a 
long  train  of  caravans  for  the  infected  district.  May  24th, 
under  such  hero  physicians  as  Dr.  Harris  of  Tripoli,  the 
disease  was  overcome — one  of  the  preeminent  medical  vic- 
tories of  all  time. 

When  the  fugitives  were  once  reinstated  in  their  houses 
and  villages,  and   food   and   clothes,  seeds,  sickles,  knives. 


172  MASTER    31 INDS 

looms  and  wheels  were  provided,  even  the  cattle  driven  off 
by  the  Kurds  into  the  mountain-passes  were  bought  or 
reclaimed,  and  to  these  two  thousand  plow-oxen  were 
added. 

October  8th,  1896,  at  "Washington,  Clara  Barton's  wel- 
come home  was  celebrated  by  a  banquet  of  the  citizens. 

''wait  a  moment,  miss  barton  " 

In  1898  Cuba  added  its  rubrics  to  American  history.  It 
also  impressed  its  red  letters  into  the  annals  of  the  Red 
Cross.  At  the  news  of  the  reconcentrados  suffering  under 
Weyler,  the  Red  Cross  in  three  days  organized  the  Cuban 
Relief  Committee  to  meet  the  intolerable  conditions  among 
the  families  driven  by  Weyler  into  towns — penniless,  home- 
less, unfed  and  sick. 

Prevented  from  going  at  once  to  the  front,  Miss  Barton 
proceeded  to  the  Secretary  of  State.  "He  is  with  the 
President, ' '  was  the  reply  with  which  she  was  checked. 

In  the  lobby  she  was  turned  away,  but  she  heard  McKin- 
ley's  kind  voice  cry,  "Wait  a  moment.  Miss  Barton." 

Ushered  into  the  President's  room  she  found  President 
McKinley  himself  as  well  as  the  Secretary  of  State.  The 
President's  benign  face,  to  grow  so  soon  ashen  white  as  the 
war  clouds  gathered,  expanded  with  a  gentle  and  assuring 
welcome.  He  was  in  a  quandary  over  the  very  question 
she  had  come  to  ask  about— the  alleviation  of  the  recon- 
centrados. 

The  result  of  the  conference  was  that  February  6th  she 
left  Washington  for  Cuba,  reaching  Havana  February  9th 
to  bring  relief  to  the  thousands  of  men,  women  and  chil- 
dren. The  men  were  like  walking  skeletons,  the  mothers 
mere  racks  of  bones,  the  babies  they  carried  but  little  shells 
of  living  clay. 


CLARA    BARTON  173 

For  this  work  Spain  itself  had  sent  her  the  royal  grant 
and  blessing. 

MISS  BARTON  IN  THE  SPANISH  WAR 

But  on  the  night  of  February  15th,  while  at  her  desk 
arranging  for  the  distribution  of  supplies,  suddenly  the 
table  tottered,  the  house  shook,  a  blast  burst  open  the 
reranda  door,  revealing  amid  a  deafening  roar  a  lurid 
blaze  seaward.  Amid  the  ringing  of  bells  and  the  blowing 
of  whistles  came  the  cry:  ''The  Maine  has  blown  up!'* 

Over  tsvo  hundred  were  lost  and  some  forty  wounded 
were  picked  up,  and  Miss  Barton  and  her  nurses  being 
ready,  these  fell  at  once  into  their  care. 

"I  am  with  the  wounded,"  came  her  cable  from  Havana. 

"Suspend  judgment,"  had  cabled  the  Maine's  captain. 

But  gradually  and  irrepressibly  the  verdict  veered  to 
war,  and  hostilities  began. 

The  Red  Cross  proceeded  to  secure  the  steamship  State 
of  Texas,  a  fourteen-hundred-ton  boat  with  a  black  hull. 
On  it,  April  29th,  Clara  Barton,  who  had  returned  at  the 
outbreak,  set  sail  from  New  York  for  the  open  Caribbean. 

June  20th  came  orders  to  report  at  Santiago  to  Admiral 
Sampson,  who,  as  fighting  had  begun,  had  advised  Miss 
Barton  to  proceed  to  Guantanamo. 

''It's  the  Rough  Riders  we  go  to,  and  the  relief  may  be 
rough,  but  it  will  be  ready, ' '  she  said. 

Siboney  was  reached  at  9  p.m. 

' '  Ha ! — a  woman  nurse  ? ' ' 

Again  Miss  Barton,  a  veteran  to  this  question,  faced  an 
army. 

As  usual  her  answer  came  not  in  words,  but  acts.  Gar- 
cia's  abandoned  house  she  fitted  up  as  a  hospital.  In  three 
days  her  ability  so  impressed  those  in  command  that  there 


174  MASTER     31 INDS 

came  to  her  the  plea  from  headquarters  '  *  to  find  it  possible 
to  care  for  patients  in  view  of  a  coming;  engagement!" 

So  the  Red  Cross  flag  flew  to  the  breeze,  and  the  1st  and 
2d  of  July  the  engagement  came.  The  historic  file  of  sol- 
diers had  made  its  way  up  San  Juan.  After  it  soldiers  by 
the  score,  sick  or  wounded,  were  lying  everywhere.  The 
blood  had  dried  and  caked  with  mud  on  their  garments 
over  their  wounds,  as  their  bodies  were  necessarily  stripped 
by  the  surgeons,  who  had  no  clothing  to  replace  them  with. 
Many  of  them,  therefore,  lay  naked,  exposed  to  the  sun's 
fierce  tropic  heat  and  to  insectivora,  daily  rains,  and  shiv- 
ering cold  at  night.  For  an  awful  stretch  of  thirty  hours 
surgeons  loaded  the  operating-tables. 

Saturday  came  hurried  orders  from  General  Shafter: 

"Send  food,  medicines — anything.  Seize  wagotis  from 
the  front  for  transportation!" 

The  army  supplies  in  ships  lay  off  at  sea,  with  no  dock 
and  no  means  of  landing  them.  But  from  the  decks  of  the 
steamer  State  of  Texa.s  and  back  on  a  surf  no  small  boat 
could  weather,  Miss  Barton  nevertheless  sent  supplies !  By 
ha^ang  natives  leap  overboard  in  the  breakers  and  seizing 
the  flat  boat  pontoons  in  which  she  had  lightered  these  sup- 
plies, she  succeeded  in  landing  the  precious  necessaries. 
Improvising  transport  wagons  out  of  hay-carts,  on  one  of 
which  she  herself  rode,  she  made  her  way  to  the  front,  to 
the  First  Division  Hospital,  Fifth  Army  Corps,  of  General 
Shafter, 

The  field  she  found  a  morass.  The  tents  were  but  dog 
tents  staked  in  the  coarse  grass.  She  saw  men  wounded, 
freshly  operated  upon,  still  l>dng  unprotected  in  the  sun 
and  rain  by  day,  and  the  chill  by  night.  Seventeen  died 
that  night.  In  the  battle  besides  the  killed,  five  hundred 
were  wounded.     Altogether  eight  hundred  lay  in  tents  or 


CLARA    BARTON  175 

sprawled  npon  the  fyrass.  No  fires  were  lit  except  such  as 
came  from  wet  wood  smouldering-  from  six  bricks  overlaid 
with  two  pieces  of  wagon-tire.  Above  them  were  small 
camp-kettles,  in  which  the  detailed  soldiers  were  trying  to 
make  coffee  for  their  wonnded  comrades. 

But  soon  Miss  Barton  had  erected  high  fire-places.  Over 
these  she  placed  great  agate  camp-kettles  holding  six  and 
seven  gallons  apiece.  In  the  cheerful  blaze  they  watched 
her  unwind  mammoth  white  bolts  of  unbleached  cotton  for 
covering  for  the  men.  Gruel,  the  first  in  three  days,  was 
soon  simmering  in  all  the  great  agate  kettles,  sending  out 
its  savor  to  the  half-famished  and  the  wounded. 

"Who  sent  it?"  was  everywhere  the  tearful  query. 

Five  Red  Cross  nurees  met  each  arrival.  These  were  Sis- 
ter Bettina,  wife  of  the  Red  Cross  surgeon;  Dr. 
Lesser,  the  noted  head  of  the  Red  Cross  Hospital  in  New 
York  city;  Sister  Minnie,  Sister  Isabel,  Sister  Anna  and 
Sister  Blanche. 

They  served,  as  they  thus  met  each  fresh  arrival  of  a 
wounded  body,  for  a  forty  hours'  stretch  of  sleepless  ser- 
vice. All  night  and  day  and  night  again,  one  by  one, 
wounded  and  sick  and  shelterless  were  being  taken  under 
cover  and  care. 

Early  in  the  dawn  of  the  first  day  after  the  engagement 
a  rough  figure  in  broAvn  khaki  appeared  at  the  little  Red 
Cross  hospital.  His  clothes  showed  hard  service,  and  a  red 
bandanna  handkerchief  hung  from  his  hat  to  protect  the 
back  of  his  neck  from  the  already  broiling  sun-rays. 

"I  have  some  sick  men  with  the  regiment  who  refuse  to 
leave  it.  They  need  such  delicacies  as  yon  have  here  which 
I  am  ready  to  pay  for  out  of  my  own  pocket.  Can  I  buy 
them?" 

"Not  for  a  million  dollars!" 


176  MASTER     31 INDS 

"But  my  men  need  these  things,"  he  said,  his  face  and 
tone  expressing  anxiety.  ' '  I  think  a  great  deal  of  my  men. 
I  am  proud  of  them. ' ' 

"And  we  know  we  are  proud  of  you,  Colonel;  but  we 
can't  sell  hospital  supplies." 

' '  Then  how  can  I  get  them  ? ' ' 

' '  Just  ask  for  them.  Colonel. ' ' 

"Oh,"  he  said,  his  face  suddenly  lighting  up  with  a 
bright  smile.  "Lend  me  a  sack  and  I'll  take  them  right 
along. ' ' 

Slinging  the  ponderous  sack  over  his  shoulder,  the  last 
they  saw  was  the  rough  figure  in  khaki,  overtopped  by  the 
red  bandanna,  swinging  off  out  of  sight  through  the  jungle. 

It  was  Theodore  Eoosevelt ! 

At  last  the  Spaniards'  wall  of  ships  was  broken  and  Cer- 
vera's  fleet  forced  out  of  the  bottled-up  harbor. 

But  in  the  besieged  islands  thousands  of  reconcentrados 
were  famishing  and  without  shelter.  A  demand  for  thirty 
thousand  rations  came  at  one  call.  There  to  meet  it  was 
Clara  Barton  and  the  black-hulled  supply-ship  Texas. 

But  red-tape  orders  due  to  fear  of  fever  contagion  stood 
between  the  Red  Cross  and  the  landing  of  supplies. 

At  her  appeal,  however,  July  16,  1898,  the  President  of 
the  Red  Cross  was  ordered  to  proceed  at  once  to  the  flag- 
ship of  Admiral  Sampson  herself.  She  had  only  to  refer 
to  the  twelve  hundred  tons  of  food,  of  which  only  two  hun- 
dred had  been  landed,  and  the  thousands  in  crying  need  at 
Santiago,  while  still  beyond  that  were  the  thirty  thousand 
dying  and  suffering  at  El  Caney. 

It  was  enough  to  win  Admiral  Sampson's  consent. 

Then  came  the  Sunday's  crisis  when  the  Spanish  fleet 
came  out  to  its  doom.  Just  afterwards  Admiral  Sampson 
dispatched  a  pilot  to  board  the  Red  Cross  ship  the  State  of 
Texas. 


CLARA   BARTON  177 

Orders  were  ^iven  Miss  Barton  to  proceed.  "With  the 
Red  Cross  streamer  aloft,  Clara  Barton  ran  the  Texas  past 
the  gxms  of  Morro,  past  the  smoking  wrecks  of  the  Spanish 
men-of-war,  past  the  sunken  Merriraac.  The  sun  was 
setting  on  an  empurpled  sea.  No  mine  was  struck. 
No  other  craft  ploughed  the  grave-like  waters.  On 
they  went — "a  cargo  of  food  under  the  direction  of  a 
woman! '^  Hers  was  the  first  ship  to  enter  the  captured 
port. 

As  her  ship  neared  the  spires  of  Santiago,  Miss  Barton 
asked : 

' '  Is  there  any  one  who  can  sing  the  Doxology  ? ' ' 

"Praise  God!"  rang  from  the  deck,  followed  by  "My 
Country,  'Tis  of  Thee."  This  was  the  ship's  order  of 
entrance:  the  Red  Cross  ship,  by  far  away  the  first;  after 
her  the  flagships  of  Admirals  Sampson  and  Schley. 

"Directions?"  flagged  Miss  Barton. 

"  Yow  need  no  directions  from  me,  hut  if  any  one  troubles 
you  let  me  know,"  signaled  Admiral  Sampson. 

While  Shafter  negotiated  with  Santiago,  the  Spanish 
wounded  were  tenderly  sent  back  on  American  stretchers, 
General  Shafter  demonstrating  to  the  letter  the  Genevan 
Treaty  of  equal  care  to  the  enemy's  woiuided.  During 
this,  General  Toral's  troops  stood  at  present-arms,  suffering 
a  mental  revolution  at  the  sight,  for  they  had  been  filled 
with  the  medieval  fear  of  butchery. 

Clara  Barton  and  the  Red  Cross  in  Cuba  were  thus 
memorialized  when,  on  December  6th,  President  McKinley 
sent  in  his  message  to  Congress : 

"Zi^  is  a  pleasure  to  me  to  mention  in  terms  of  cordial 

appreciation  the  timely  and  useful  work  of  the  Red  Cross, 

both  in  relief  measures  preparatory  to  the  campaigns,  in 

sanitary  assistance  to  several  of  the  camps  of  assemblage, 

12 


178  MASTERMINDS 

a7id  l-ater  under  the  able  and  experienced  leadership  of 
Miss  Clara  Barton  on  the  fields  of  battle  and  in  the  hospi- 
tals at  the  front  in  Cuba.  The  Bed  Cross  has  fully  main- 
tained its  already  high  reputation  for  intense  earnestness 
and  ability  to  exercise  the  noble  purposes  of  its  inter- 
national organization.'' 

AT   THE  GALVESTON  FLOOD 

A  tidal  wave  and  tornado  of  terrific  and  titanic  force  on 
September  8,  1900,  swept  over  the  seas  and  submerged  Gal- 
veston, the  metropolis  of  Texas.  Containing  some  forty 
thousand  human  souls,  with  the  island  on  which  it  stood 
and  the  adjoining  mainland,  the  buried  city  was  engulfed 
in  the  ripping  fury  of  the  waves.  Lives  to  the  awful  num- 
ber of  from  eight  thousand  to  ten  thousand  were  suddenly 
lost  in  the  cataclysm  of  flood  and  cyclone,  which  crushed 
like  eggshells  four  thousand  homes  of  the  people,  only  to 
dro\\Ti  these  people  like  rats  in  the  hurtling  debris.  The 
thousands  of  survivors  "through  a  terrible  day  of  storm 
and  a  night  of  horror  floated  and  swam  and  struggled,  amid 
the  storm-beaten  waves,  with  the  broken  slate  roofs  of  all 
these  houses  hurled  like  cannon-shot  against  them,  cutting, 
breaking,  crushing ;  meeting  in  the  waves  obstacles  of  every 
sort  from  a  crazed  cow  fighting  for  its  life  to  a  mad  mocca- 
sin-snake— perhaps  to  come  out  at  last  on  some  beach  miles 
away,  among  people  as  strange  and  bewildered  as  them- 
selves. Some  of  them  struggled  back  to  find  possibly  a  few 
members  of  the  family  left,  the  rest  among  the  several  thou- 
sand of  whom  nothing  is  known." 

When  the  waters  subsided,  eight  thousand  and  more  wan- 
dered, dazed  and  destitute,  in  the  sand  which  coated  the 
land,  but  in  which  tent-stakes  could  not  be  successfully 
fixed  to  afford  even  the  shelter  of  wind-tossed  canvas. 


CLARA   BARTON  179 

Confronting:  these  refugees  and  victims  as  they  opened 
their  eye.s,  sliook  off  their  stupor  and  beeame  conscious  of 
the  catastrophe,  was  only  (to  use  Miss  Barton's  eyes)  "the 
d^^'bris  of  broken  houses,  crushed  to  splinters  and  piled 
twenty  feet  hicrh,  alono-  miles  of  sea-coast,  where  even  six 
blocks  wide  of  the  city  itself  was  gone,  and  the  sea  rolled 
and  tossed  over  what  was  lately  its  finest  and  most  thickly 
populated  avenues;  heaps  of  splintered  wood  were  filled 
with  the  furniture  of  once  beautiful  habitations — beds, 
pianos,  chairs,  tables, — all  that  made  up  happy  homes. 
"Worse  than  that,  the  bodies  of  the  owuers  were  rotting 
therein,  twenty  or  thirty  of  them  being  taken  out  every 
day,  as  workmen  removed  the  rubbish  and  laid  it  on  great 
piles  of  ever-burning  fire,  covering  the  corpses  with  mat- 
tresses, doors,  boards — anything  that  was  found  near  them, 
and  then  left  to  burn  out  or  go  away  in  impregnated  smoke, 
while  the  weary  workmen  'toiled'  on  for  the  next." 

Almost  every  family  in  the  city  had  all  or  part  of  its 
members  among  the  dead,  while  the  li\dng,  for  the  most 
part  without  a  roof,  remained  to  suffer  in  the  blasts  of  the 
retreating  hurricane  and  coming  nor 'casters. 

To  succor  and  shelter  the  thirty  thousand  people  left, 
one-third  of  whom  at  least  were  huddling  in  the  wreckage 
like  cattle  in  a  pen,  came  the  Red  Cross,  headed  by  Clara 
Barton  in  person. 

September  13th  Texas  City,  just  opposite  Galveston,  was 
reached,  after  the  first  news  of  the  disaster  at  Washington, 
by  Clara  Barton  and  her  committee.  While  awaiting  the 
boat  across  the  bay,  Miss  Barton's  party  were  met  by  the 
local  caretakers  of  the  many  injured  who  were  being  cared 
for  in  crowded  quarters  in  Texas  City  itself,  although  it 
mostly  lay  stricken  level  to  the  ground.  Across  the  bay 
the  doomed  city  of  Galveston  appeared  lighted  not  by  elec- 


180  MASTER    MINDS 

trie  arcs,  but  by  vast  funeral  pyres  on  the  coast  of  the 
island  and  the  adjoining  mainland.  Twenty-three  funeral 
piles  ]\Iiss  Barton  could  count  at  one  time.  Everywhere 
the  air  reeked  as  it  was  to  reek  for  months  with  the  acrid 
smoke  of  burnt  human  flesh,  frequently  thirty  bodies  and 
more  being  in  one  of  the  awful  pyres.  These  only  could 
destroy  them,  as  the  tide  had  carried  bodies  away  but  to 
return  them  to  be  cast  upon  the  shore.  At  hand,  Miss  Bar- 
ton and  her  committee  were  confronted  by  hosts  of 
refugees,  whom  the  little  harbor-boat  kept  landing  on  the 
beach  at  Texas  City.  All  were  sufferers,  whether  maimed 
or  dazed.  Lunatics  and  unnumbered  cases  of  nervous 
prostration  caused  by  the  late  terror  arrived  \\dth  the 
rest. 

Thus  warned  of  the  catastrophe's  extent,  next  morning 
Miss  Barton's  committee  took  the  boat  to  the  stricken  city. 
At  a  first  interview  a  representative  of  the  party  was  told 
that  the  city  "needed  no  nurses!"  At  the  quick  reply  of 
Miss  Barton's  spokesman  that  she  "was  glad,  as  they  had 
none  to  give,"  the  look  of  surprise  which  followed  upon 
the  face  of  the  high-keyed  local  head  of  medical  relief  was 
countered  by  the  Red  Cross  representative 's  rebuttal : 
"What  are  you  most  in  need  of?" 

"Surgical  dressings  and  medical  supplies." 

Telegraphing  the  huge  order  it  was  filled  and  receipted 
by  the  Red  Cross  in  twenty- four  hours !  Thus  learned  the 
Galveston  local  committee  of  relief  that  the  Bed  Cross  had 
come  with  the  country  behind  its  back.  Thus  they  learned 
that  a  Nation  was  subject  to  the  Red  Cross'  beck  and 
call. 

''What  do  you  most  needf"  was  asked  of  the  chief  of 
police. 

* '  Homes, ' '  was  the  reply. 


CLARA   BARTON  181 

Estimating  the  material  needed  for  homes,  Miss  Barton 
at  once  sent  over  the  whole  United  States  a  plea  to  all  lum- 
ber, hardware  and  furniture  dealers. 

Pacing  the  actual  needs,  the  Red  Cross  thus  went  to 
work,  each  gi'oup  with  a  separate  department  of  investiga- 
tion empowered  to  meet  the  discovered  need,  whether  it  be 
for  stoves,  heaters,  food,  clothing,  bedding,  blankets,  or 
other  necessities  of  life. 

As  the  answer  to  these  needs,  from  the  constantly  arriv- 
ing carloads  and  shiploads  centralized  at  the  Red  Cross 
warehouses,  came  huge  boxes,  branded  with  the  flaming 
Red  Cross,  ready  to  be  landed  at  every  place  where  clus- 
tered a  group  of  survivors. 

The  task  was  tremendous  and  but  begun.  Miss  Barton, 
who  herself  remained  two  months,  thus  sketched  the  condi- 
tion: 

' '  Dead  citizens  lay  by  thousands  amid  the  wreck  of  their 
homes,  and  raving  maniacs  searched  the  debris  for  their 
loved  ones,  with  the  organized  gangs  of  workers.  Corpses, 
dumped  by  barge-loads  into  the  Gulf,  came  floating  back 
to  menace  the  living ;  and  the  nights  were  lurid  with  incin- 
erations of  putrefying  bodies,  piled  like  cord-wood,  black 
and  white  together,  irrespective  of  age,  sex  or  previous 
condition.  At  least  four  thousand  dwellings  had  been 
swept  away,  with  all  their  contents,  and  fully  half  of  the 
population  of  the  city  was  without  shelter,  food,  clothes, 
or  any  of  the  necessaries  of  life.  Of  these,  some  were 
living  in  tents,  others  crowded  in  with  friends  hardly  less 
fortunate;  many  half-crazed,  wandering  aimlessly  about 
the  streets,  and  the  story  of  their  sufferings,  mental  and 
physical,  past  the  telling.  Every  house  that  remained  was 
a  house  of  mourning.     Fires  yet  burned  continuously,  fed 


182  MASTER    MINDS 

not  only  by  human  bodies,  but  by  thousands  of  carcasses 
of  domestic  animals. 

"By  that  time,  in  the  hot,  moist  atmosphere  of  the  lati- 
tude, decomposition  had  so  far  advanced  that  the  corpses — 
which  at  first  were  decently  carried  in  carts  or  on  stretch- 
ers, then  shoveled  upon  boards  or  blankets — had  finally  to 
be  scooped  up  with  pitchforks  in  the  hands  of  negroes, 
kept  at  their  awful  task  by  the  soldiers'  bayonets.  And 
still  the  'finds'  continued,  at  the  average  rate  of  seventy  a 
day.  The  once-beautiful  driving-beach  was  strewn  with 
mounds  and  trenches,  holding  unrecognized  and  uncoffined 
victims  of  the  flood ;  and  between  this  improvised  cemetery 
and  a  ridge  of  debris,  three  miles  long  and  in  places  higher 
than  the  houses  had  been,  a  line  of  cremation  fires  poisoned 
the  air. ' ' 

Even  during  the  sixth  week  in  Galveston,  happening  to 
pass  one  of  these  primitive  crematories,  Miss  Barton 
stopped  to  interview  the  man  in  charge.  Boards,  water- 
soaked  mattresses,  rags  of  blankets  and  curtains,  part  of  a 
piano  and  the  framework  of  sewing-machines  piled  on  top, 
gave  it  the  appearance  of  a  festive  bonfire,  and  only  the 
familiar  odor  betrayed  its  purpose. 

' '  Have  you  burned  any  bodies  here  ? ' '  she  inquired.  The 
custodian  regarded  her  with  a  stare  that  plainly  said,  "Do 
you  think  I  am  doing  this  for  amusement  ? ' '  and  shifted  his 
quid  from  cheek  to  cheek  before  replying: 

"Ma'am,"  said  he,  "this  'ere  fire's  been  goin'  on  more  'n 
a  month.  To  my  knowledge,  upwards  of  sixty  bodies  have 
been  burned  in  it." 

One  department  of  the  Red  Cross  took  care  of  all  sur- 
viving children,  orphaned  by  the  loss  of  parents, — a  group 
especially  appealing  to  the  country  and  for  which  in  New 
York  alone  was  raised  fifty  thousand  dollars. 


CLARA   BARTON  183 

In  all  it  took  four  vast  warehouses  and  twelve  ward- 
stations  to  act  as  a  base  from  which  to  systematize  the  vast 
work  of  Red  Cros.s  relief. 

Besides  Galveston  proper  the  experienced  eye  of  Miss 
Barton  at  once  saw  six  smitten  counties  on  the  mainland 
with  homes  destroyed,  houses  leveled  to  kindling  heaps  and 
their  casualties  a  replica  of  Galveston's  horrible  tale  of 
death  and  woe  on  the  night  of  horrors  of  September  8. 

In  addition  in  these  farming  districts  on  the  main  coast, 
all  crops  and  farming  animals  were  destroyed.  Not  only 
to  offer  charity  but  to  help  people  help  themselves  and  give 
them  work,  was  the  great  question. 

Miss  Barton,  through  her  committee,  at  once  saw  the 
point  of  permanent  need.  One  million  and  a  half  of 
stravv  berry-plants  and  cases  of  other  seeds  for  southern 
crops,  through  her  committee  she  provided  and  added  to 
the  carloads  and  shiploads  of  immediate  necessities.  But 
there  were  in  need  one  thousand  square  miles  and  sixty 
different  towns  and  villages  in  the  stricken  districts  on  the 
mainland. 

To  all  these  the  Eed  Cross,  though  centred  at  Galveston, 
turned  its  hand  not  only  with  tools  and  seeds  for  the 
future,  but  to  meet  the  crying  needs  of  the  moment  with 
one  thousand  five  hundred  and  fifty-two  huge  cases,  two 
hundred  and  fifty-eight  barrels,  five  hundred  and  forty- 
two  packages,  thirteen  casks,  containing  mixed  clothing, 
shoes,  crockery,  hardware,  groceries,  disinfectants  and 
medicine,  in  addition  to  carloads  of  lumber. 

Of  the  great  national  disasters  in  America  in  times  of 
peace,  this  calamity  September  8,  1900,  at  Galveston,  has 
been  the  vastest  and  most  destructive. 

Next  and  almost  as  calamitous  were  the  Johnstown  flood 
and  the  cyclone  and  the  engulfment  on  the  Port  Royal 
Islands. 


184  MASTER    MINDS 

The  loss  of  life  in  each  of  the  three  cataclysms  was  nearly 
in  each  case  ten  thousand  human  lives,  while  at  Galveston 
the  sums  of  money  for  relief  were  almost  the  same  as  at 
Johnstown,  namely,  nearly  one  million  five  hundred  thou- 
sand dollars ! 

And  in  all  these  national  disasters  ready  in  times  of 
peace  as  it  had  come  to  be  so  gloriously  in  times  of  war, 
extending  out  from  the  great  body  of  our  people,  the  hand 
of  relief  was  the  Red  Cross,  the  soul  of  which  was  a  little 
woman  not  standing  over  five  feet  four  inches — Clara  Bar- 
ton. 

Grandly  institutionalized  as  a  governmental  institution 
as  it  is  to-day,  with  first  the  Secretary  of  War  and  now  the 
national  President^  proud  to  be  at  the  head — this  Red  Cross, 
whose  hand  reaches  out  so  gloriously  from  the  body  of  our 
people,  would  never  have  been  born  in  America  had  it  not 
been  through  the  travail  of  this  little  woman's  soul,  who,  to 
let  it  be  born,  had  to  fight  off  the  very  government  which 
now  so  proudly  and  ardently  has  taken  it  out  of  her  hands 
and  claimed  it  for  its  own. 


FIRST   AID   TO    THE   INJURED 

But  her  work  was  not  yet  through.  Miss  Barton's 
genius  of  observation  in  foreign  countries,  especially  Switz- 
erland and  England,  had  shown  her  the  great  utility  of 
first-aid  work  known  as   the   St.    John   Ambulance,  which 


iDec.  8th,  1908,  President-elect  Wm.  H.  Taft  was  re-elected  Pres- 
ident of  the  American  Eed  Cross,  asserting  it  would  give  him  great 
pleasure  to  continue  as  its  head.  President  Taft  refused  to  be 
elected  an  honorary  member,  as  he  coveted  the  privilege  of  active 
leadership. 


CLABA   BARTON  185 

work  she  had  been  very  desirous  of  establishing  in  Amer- 
ica; and  at  length,  in  the  spring  of  1903,  she  succeeded  in 
establisliing  under  the  direction  of  Edward  Howe  of  Eng- 
land, assisted  by  Roscoe  G.  Wells  and  others,  a 
headquarters  of  First  Aid  in  Boston,  with  the  purpose  of 
making  it  a  part  of  the  American  Red  Cross  work,  and  it 
was  so  voted  and  entered  in  the  by-laws  of  the  Red  Cross 
of  1903.  In  1904  Miss  Barton  resigned  from  the  Red 
Cross,  it  having  virtually  become  a  Government  institution. 
But  in  its  reorganization  the  First  Aid  not  being  included 
either  in  its  charter  or  bj^-laws,  and  as  Miss  Barton  was 
still  anxious  for  its  establishment  in  America,  she  con- 
tinued its  work  at  the  headquarters  in  Boston.  Of  its  dire 
and  grim  necessity  a  few  statistical  facts  give  abundant 
evidence.  In  the  industries  of  the  United  States  five  hun- 
dred thousand  casualties  occur  each  year.  Every  minute 
one  toiler  drops  either  killed  or  injured ! 

In  1889  among  railroad  men  casualties  happened  to  one 
in  thirty-five  men.  In  1905  it  increased  to  one  in  nineteen 
— thus  doubling  the  peril. 

One  man  dropping  a  minute! — It  has  been  truly  said: 
*  *  The  Russo-Japanese  War  could  not  equal  that ! ' ' 

In  this  industrial  strife,  maiming  and  killing  in  times  of 
peace  five  hundred  thousand  a  year,  can  not  the  Red  Cross 
serve? 

Such  a  challenge  has  not  escaped  Clara  Barton,  in  whom, 
when  human  pain  is  in  view,  her  eye  for  its  relief  is  not 
dimmed  nor  her  natural  force  abated. 

The  motive  of  this  new  and  needed  organization  she  has 
said  is  ''essentially  the  giving  of  first  aid.  You  cannot  do 
this  by  giving  pink  teas  or  by  keeping  accounts  in  an  office. 
Such  work  is  done  by  going  about  with  your  sleeves  rolled 
up  and  with  the  immediate  situation  always  in  hand. ' ' 


186  MASTER    MINDS 

June  17,  1906,  in  Boston,  therefore,  the  association  born 
of  this  motive  grew  into  an  organization.  It  was  for  the 
purpose  of  instructing  people  in  the  knowledge  of  "First 
Aid  to  the  Injured" — "what  to  do  and  how  to  do  it  in 
time  of  accident." 

This  gathering  without  Miss  Barton,  fine  as  it  was,  would 
have  been  but  an  organization.  With  her  it  was  an 
orgaiiism. 

"It  is  an  organized  movement,"  she  arose  to  say,  "that 
shall  yet  permeate  more  homes,  penetrate  more  hearts, 
broaden  more  needs,  carry  useful  knowledge  to  more  men 
and  women  who  could  get  it  no  other  way,  assuage  more 
suffering  that  nothing  else  could  reach,  awaken  an  interest 
in  the  welfare  of  his  brother  man  in  more  rough  toil-worn 
hearts  unknown  to  it  before,  than  lies  in  our  power  to  esti- 
mate or  our  hopes  to  conceive. ' ' 

"Twenty-five  years  ago,  when  it  was  my  privilege  to 
bring  the  germ  of  the  Red  Cross  to  this  country,  and  after 
years  of  untold  labor  gained  for  it  a  foothold,  a  treaty,  a 
charter  and  a  working  organization,  I  thought  I  had  done 
my  country  and  its  people  the  most  humane  service  it 
would  ever  be  in  my  power  to  offer. 

"But  as  organized,  it  reached  only  a  certain  class.  All 
the  accidents  incidental  to  family  life,  mechanics,  chemi- 
cals, manufactories  and  railroads  with  their  hundred  thou- 
sand victims  a  year,  were  not  within  its  province. 

"Hence  the  necessity  and  opportunity  for  this  broader 
work  where,"  she  went  on  to  say,  "the  sickening  stab  of 
sharpened  steel,  the  rending  of  saws,  the  tearing  of  drills, 
the  gnaw  of  couplers,  the  pinch  of  belts  become  a  biting 
agony." 

"A  wise  Providence  has  permitted  me  to  leave  the  one 
that  I  might  stand  with  the  other  in  its  beginning.     'Peace 


CLARA   BARTON  187 

hath  her  battlefields  no  less  than  war.'  The  sweat  of 
blood,  the  dust,  dirt  and  grime-glued  frame,  the  aching 
stress  on  full-strained  muscle  and  sinew,  thwart  the  pur- 
pose, blind  the  eye,  deaden  tlie  will  and  divert  the  crafts- 
man's skill." 

Thus  Clara  Barton  became  President  of  ' '  The  First  Aid 
to  the  Injured,"  and  thence  the  association  has  radiated 
its  power  till  it  has  reached  all  the  States  of  the  Union,  and 
has  become  a  National  organization,  inspirited  with  the  soul 
of  its  President. 

It  was  incorporated  as  a  National  body  April  18,  1905. 

"Its  First  Aid  Handbook"^  carries  directions  for  treat- 
ing accidents  of  every  kind.  Illustrated  with  diagrams  it 
is  of  great  effect.  Its  lessons  are  taught  in  all  branches  of 
society  and  industry — in  classes  of  railroad  men,  Y.  M.  C. 
A.,  police  departments,  gymnasiums,  fire  departments, 
boys'  schools,  the  Salvation  Army  and  innumerable  facto- 
ries and  centres  of  industries,  as  well  as  in  a  universal  and 
unclassed  host  of  individuals  and  homes  throughout  the 
land. 

Thus  never  ceasing  to  toil  for  her  feUows  in  distress,  the 
afternoon  of  her  career  Miss  Barton  spends  in  winter  at 
her  home,  Glen  Echo,  Maryland,  and  in  summers  at  her  old 
home  town  of  Oxford,  Massachusetts, 

Eighty-eight  years  young,  Clara  Barton  can  still 
declare  to-day,  as  she  declared  to  a  gathering  of  neigh- 
bors and  friends  not  long  ago : 


i"The  Barton  First  Aid  Text-book,"  134  pp.  Issued  at  6  Beacon 
Street,  Boston,  by  H.  H.  Hartung,  M.D.  Under  Clara  Barton's  pen 
has  been  also  issued  ' '  The  History  of  the  Eed  Cross, "  "  The  History 
of  the  Eed  Cross  in  Peace  and  War,"  and  "The  Story  of  My 
Childhood." 


188  MASTER    MINDS 

*'My  working  hours  are  fourteen  out  of  twenty- four,^  It 
is  my  duty  to  work  for  the  good  of  my  kind.  While  the 
strength  is  given  me,  I  have  no  right  to  lay  it  down. ' ' 


lA  day  with  Miss  Barton,  Sunday,  September  26th,  1909,  revealed 
her  wonderful  retention  of  human  faculties.  "It  is  too  bad  it  is 
raining,"  the  author  remarked  as  he  escorted  her  from  an  auto- 
mobile into  his  church  where  she  was  to  speak.  "Is  it?"  she  said 
carelessly,  ' '  I  hadn  't  noticed  it ! "  Addressing  from  five  to  six 
hundred  people  a  little  later,  she  rose  and  spoke  unsupported  for 
fifteen  minutes,  and  with  the  voice  and  animation  and  intellect  of 
a  woman  of  forty.  Hardly  a  gray  hair  was  to  be  seen,  and  she  fol- 
lowed her  speech  by  standing  to  receive  hundreds  of  people.  Per- 
haps this  continued  thought  of  others  and  self-forgetfulness  is  the 
secret  of  her  keeping  her  youth  at  eigthy-eight.  Though  dining 
as  heartily  as  a  girl,  she  said  she  avoided  every  stimulant,  saying 
when  we  offered  her  coffee:  "I  never  drink  coffee — or  whiskey." 


fiEOHCK     1}AMI!(I|'-T 

ilisloriaii   of  the   United  Slates 


GEORGE  BANCROFT 

HISTORIAN  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES 

MANY  famous  sons  of  clerjrymen  have  refuted  the 
wicked  old  blackmail  about  '* ministers'  sons"  by 
being  the  product  of  an  American  manse. 
To  this  circle  George  Bancroft,  greatest  historian  of  the 
United  States,  adds  a  name  surpassingly  notable.  He 
bears  witness  to  the  power  of  a  simple  parsonage  to  radiate 
integrity  and  influence  far  outside  of  things  ecclesiastical 
into  a  world-wide  domain  where  all  truth  is  God's. 

Bancroft  Tower,  off  Salisbury  Street  in  Worcester, 
marks  a  comer  of  the  farm  where  stood  the  rustic  manse  in 
which  George,  the  eighth  of  thirteen  children,  was  born 
October  3d,  1800. 

AMERICAN  INDEPENDENCE  THE  CRUCIBLE  OP  HIS  FATHER  *S 
CHARACTER 

The  answer  to  the  question  why  it  happened  to  be  a  farm 
when  his  father  was  pastor  two  miles  away  of  a  church  on 
Back  Street  (now  Summer  Street),  leads  to  an  interesting 
situation  as  the  curtain  rises  on  the  stage  whereon  George 
Bancroft  began  life. 

Five  hundred  dollars,  largely  in  back  bills  to  be  collected 
at  a  discount,  was  all  the  salary  his  father,  Aaron  Bancroft, 
drew.  Hence  to  eke  out  his  scanty  living,  he  had  to  take 
to  farming  on  the  rocky  hillsides  where  stands  the  monu- 
m.ental  tower. 


190  MASTERMINDS 

A  few  j^ears  before,  while  a  sophomore  at  Harvard,  the 
Revolution  sounded  its  call.  Then  Aaron  left  college, 
shouldered  a  gun  at  Lexington  and  fought  at  Bunker  Hill. 

Sturdy  independence  was  thus  inborn  and  fired  into  the 
human  clay  of  his  youth  at  the  age  of  change.  It  was  an 
independence  that  showed  itself  at  every  turn  long  after 
the  Treaty  of  Peace. 

The  deteraiination  to  hold  up  liis  head,  preach  to  the  best 
in  Worcester  and  go  on  preaching  at  the  pittance  of  a  sal- 
ary, was  a  continuation  of  the  same  fighting-blood  of  the 
independent. 

This  independent  spirit  pervaded  every  side  of  his  life. 

For  example,  he  insisted  on  marrying  the  daughter  of  a 
distinguished  Tory  royalist,  John  Chandler,  whose  goods 
and  lands  were  confiscated,  and  who  became  an  exile  rather 
than  take  the  oath  of  allegiance,  Lucretia  Chandler  was 
the  daughter  of  this  exile,  who  had  lived  up  to  his  convic- 
tions for  King  George  as  stubbornly  as  his  son-in-law,  on 
the  other  side,  fought  against  him.  The  exile's  wife,  left 
to  take  care  of  seventeen  children,  died.  Lucretia  was 
left  as  an  older  daughter  out  of  the  sad  break-up  of  such 
a  home  and  its  plunge  into  "the  poverty-stricken  state." 
Then  because  he  was  man  enough  in  a  case  of  true  love  to 
"cut  prejudice  against  the  grain"  and  ask  her,  Lucretia 
married  Aaron,  George  Bancroft's  father. 

Aaron  Bancroft  also  showed  this  independence  of  judg- 
ment in  the  years  1783-84,  when  he  preached  in  the  pulpit 
of  Old  South,  the  First  Parish,  where  a  majority  of  the 
people  were  conservative,  and  held  tenaciously  to  the  ortho- 
dox side  of  Calvinism.  A  score  of  old  families  of  intellect 
and  culture  thought  the  other  way,  and  tended  toward 
Arminianism.  In  the  old  meeting-house,  Aaron  Bancroft 
preached  on  without  fear  or  favor,  and  as  a  result  was  sure 


GEORGE   BANCROFT  191 

to  incur  upon  his  head  the  indiprnation  of  some  one.  It 
proved  to  be  the  ortliodox  majority  who  thoiiifht  his  views 
heretical.  Then  the  church  split — a  fact  he  always  de- 
plored,— and  in  1785  the  more  advanced  thinkers  asked 
him  to  become  their  minister  in  another  place,  though  they 
still  were  compelled  to  pay  tax  to  the  old  First,  the  estab- 
lished church  of  the  "Worcester  colony.^ 

In  1786  so  few  and  far  between  were  those  of  his  per- 
suasion that  it  was  hard  to  find  clergymen  to  ordain  him, 
one  from  Lancaster  and  one  from  Lunenburg  alone  con- 
senting. 

Fifty-three  and  one-half  years  in  this  pulpit,  Aaron  Ban- 
croft stood  his  ground,  acting  up  to  the  courage  of  his  con- 
victions and  preaching  truth  as  he  saw  it  in  this  new 
church  which  soon  grew  into  a  Unitarian  communion. 

A  soldier  of  fortune  in  his  struggle  for  thirteen  boys  and 
girls,  and  backed  by  but  a  remnant  of  people,  he  yet  founded 
a  home  instinctive  with  manly  independence  and  dearly 
bought  honor.  Persecution,  loneliness  and  struggle  had 
the  effect  of  the  wind  on  the  fiow^er,  toughening  the  tissues 
in  the  stock,  which  in  this  case  were  mental,  moral,  spirit- 
ual as  w^ell  as  physical.  Development  under  such  pressure 
made  his  home  dynamic  and  vibratory  mth  originality, 
resourcefulness,  progress  and  creative  thought. 

In  three-cornered  hat  and  knickerbockers,  the  last  man 
in  Worcester  to  wear  them,  small  and  wiry,  but  dignified, 
Aaron  Bancroft  was  every  inch  the  freshly-moulded  Amer- 
ican. 

For  him  her  old-world  moulds  aside  she  threw — 
New  birth  of  our  new  soil. 

He  marked  out  his  own  path,  where  every  epoch 
was  a  new  battlefield,  and  a  fresh   victorj^  for   a  soul   in 


iln  1787  legal  separation  was  effected  and  the  tax  stopped. 


192  MASTER    MINDS 

whom  energized  to  the  end  the  quintessence  of  American 
independence. 

Ploughing  all  the  day  as  he  had  to  plough,  he  yet  kept  an 
elastic,  growing  mind,  uncalloused  by  drudgery.  His 
application  of  religion  to  life  instead  of  metaphysics  and 
dogma,  his  devotion  to  ripe  scholarship  and  his  gift  of 
expression  were  the  fine  flowers  that  grew  out  of  his  posi- 
tion, grounded  as  it  was  into  this  touch  with  the  soil. 

All  this  made  its  home-thrust  into  George,  and  was 
inbuilt  into  his  physical  and  his  spiritual  structure. 

Senator  George  Frisbie  Hoar,  three  quarters  of  a  cen- 
tury later,  when  amazed  at  George  Bancroft's  vigor  of 
thought  and  beauty  of  diction,  heard  him  from  his  own  lips 
ascribe  his  deep  inclinations  towards  these  and  towards  his- 
tory to  his  father,  Aaron  Bancroft,  who  had  "a  very  judi- 
cial mind  and  would  have  been  an  eminent  historian. ' ' 

THE  '^BURBANKING'^  OF  THE  BOY  IN  WORCESTER'S  HILLS  AND 

POOLS 

*^Burbanking"  a  boy  finds  no  better  confirmation  for  the 
training  of  the  human  plant  than  in  the  making  of  this 
master-mind  of  Bancroft. 

"I  was  a  wild  boy,"  he  wrote  to  a  literary  friend, 
"and  your  aunt  did  not  like  me.  She  was  always  fearful 
that  I  would  get  her  son  into  bad  ways,  and  still  more 
alarmed  lest  I  should  some  day  be  the  cause  of  his  being 
brought  home  dead.  There  was  a  river  or  piece  of  water 
near  Worcester  where  I  used  to  beguile  young  Salisbury, 
and  having  constructed  a  rude  sort  of  raft,  he  and  I  would 
pass  a  good  deal  of  our  play-time  in  aquatic  amusements, 
not  by  any  means  unattended  by  danger.  Madam 's  remon- 
strances were  all  in  vain,  and  she  was  more  and  more  con- 


GEORGE   BANCROFT  193 

firmed  in  the  opinion  that  I  was  a  wild,  bad  boy — a  wild, 
bad  boy  I  continued  to  be  up  to  manhood." 

This  strain  of  the  wildin^?  in  his  nature  ever  kept  Ban- 
croft from  being  out  of  touch  with  common  clay  and  from 
being  carried  off  his  feet  by  things  academic,  pedantic  and 
booldsh. 

He  owed  this  strain  not  only  to  such  an  out  of  doors  in 
which  he  revelled  in  Worcester's  green  hills  and  silver  pools 
— not  only  to  mother  earth,  but  to  his  mother  in  the  flesh. 
Far  removed  from  the  academician  and  stoic  scholar  in  her 
husband,  Aaron  Bancroft,  her  nature  wa.s  elastic  with 
animal  spirits  and  homespun  out  of  simple  affection,  com- 
mon sense,  charity  and  unlettered  good  humor. 

' '  How  happy  I  was, ' '  the  good  dame  wrote,  ' '  when  I  had 
half  a  douzen  children  standing  around  me  for  their  break- 
fast and  supper,  consisting  of  rye  bread  tosted,  the  frag- 
ments of  cold  coffee  boyled  and  put  on  milk.  I  always  did 
it  with  my  own  hands,  tliey  as  cheerful  and  satisfied  as  if 
it  was  a  dainty.  For  why?  Because  mother  gave  it  to 
them.  At  dinner  my  children  always  dined  with  us. 
Cheap  soup  or  pudding  would  be  generally  seen — I  learned 
many  cheap  dishes.  I  was  grateful  for  the  bright  prospect 
before  the  children  as  they  advanced,  for  their  readiness 
to  learn  and  the  very  great  love  they  show  to  their 
mother. ' ' 

Such  was  the  untutored  love-light  in  Bancroft's  mother. 

There  was  none  of  the  danger  of  over-education  of  mind 
and  under-education  of  body  as  exists  too  often  in  the  hot- 
house plant  of  to-day 's  schools.  The  session  itself  was  only 
a  three-hour-and-a-half  one  in  the  old  town  school-house, 
and  the  rustic  walk  back  and  forth  for  two  miles  each  way 
fortunately  gave  play  to  pent-up  animal  spirits. 
Eyes  and  ears  were  always  open  along  the  road.  What  he 
13 


194  MASTERMINDS 

saw  diverted  the  boy  and  lent  color  to  his  imagination,  in 
which  it  was  long*  afterwards  retained  over  the  grilf  of  three 
generations,  to  appear  in  his  later  life  and  visualize  the 
earlier  epoch. 

' '  I  saw  a  man  in  the  pillory  there  once, ' '  he  exclaimed,  at 
nearly  ninety,  while  on  a  visit  to  Worcester,  in  the  course 
of  which  he  passed  by  Court  House  Hill.  "He  had 
uttered  some  blasphemous  words  and  was  punished  in  that 
way, ' ' 

To  his  dying  day  he  related  with  gusto  such  jokes  as  his 
bo^^sh  fancy  caught  as  he  trotted  to  and  fro  from  school, 
or  rode  behind  his  father's  old  horse  from  the  country-side 
to  Lincoln  Square. 

One  of  these  bits  of  humor  he  regaled  his  friends  with 
was  about  old  Levi  Lincoln.  The  old  gentleman  was 
nearly  blind.  A  flock  of  geese  were  being  driven  up  Lin- 
coln Street.  Leaning  far  out  of  his  carriage,  the  fine  old 
aristocrat,  thinking  they  were  children,  threw  out  a  hand- 
ful of  pennies,  graciously  exclaiming: 

' '  God  bless  you,  my  children  ! ' ' 

After  these  journeys  afoot  to  and  from  school  in  the 
morning,  for  the  rest  of  the  day  the  farm  offered  abundant 
opportunity  to  work  off  all  surplus  energy  befo«re  it  could 
go  too  far.  Here  also  he  gained  a  control  over  his  nervous, 
bilious,  melancholic  nature,  leaving  it  for  life  like  his 
father's,  wiry  and  enduring. 

"If  a  man  does  not  take  time  to  keep  well,  he  will  have 
to  take  time  to  be  sick, ' '  was  a  motto  he  learned  here. 

BANCROFT 's  ORIGINALITY 

Within  the  farm-manse  the  atmosphere  was  as  conducive 
to  the  natural  growth  of  the  higher  being  as  the  out-of-door 


GEORGE    BANC BOFT  195 

life  was  to  the  bodily.  Orisjinal  jndprment,  not  a  mumblinf; 
over  of  forrmilaries,  was  the  mlo  of  the  honse.  To  culti- 
vate it,  his  father  in  debate  with  celebrated  men  of  the  day, 
such  as  the  chief  justices  and  other  leaders,  was  accustomed 
to  turn  to  him  and  ask  of  him,  a  boy  of  six,  7ms  opinion. 

It  is  a  mark  of  such  orifTfinality  here  cultivated  that  in 
several  ways  George  Bancroft,  though  in  spirit  a  filial 
embodiment,  did  not  at  all  copy  his  father  in  the  forms  of 
his  life. 

The  forms  also  of  his  religious  vieivs  were  different.  His 
father  was  pastor  of  the  first  Unitarian  Church  in  Worces- 
ter. George  Bancroft  thought  for  himself,  and  declared 
himself  more  in  sympathy  with  the  Trinitarians.^ 

All  through  life  Bancroft  exercised  original  insight  in 
religion.  He  saw  the  good  in  each  sect,  discriminating  it 
from  its  limitations.  He  rejected  the  dogma,  but  wel- 
comed the  spirit  of  the  Unitarian.  He  attended  service 
with  Episcopalians,  but  said,  "I  am  not  an  Episcopalian." 
He  deplored  the  formalism  of  the  Roman  Catholic  system, 
but  immersed  his  soul  in  worship  at  St.  Peter 's.  And  how- 
ever much  he  turned  from  the  Congregational  to  worship 
elsewhere,  he  yet  always  turned  back  again  to  conclude,  "I 
am  a  Congregationalist.  "^ 

One  thing  that  contributed  to  his  ability  to  think  for 
himself  was  his  departure,  at  the  early  age  of  eleven,  for 
Phillips  Exeter  Academy.  Aaron  and  Lucretia  Bancroft 
were  able  to  get  him  there,  but  so  poor  were  they,  in  their 
high  thinking  and  plain  living,  that  they  were  unable  to 


iSee  life  and  letters  of  George  Bancroft. — If.  A.  DeWolfe  Howe, 
Vol.  II,  p.  120. 

2"  I  am  with  increasing  years  more  and  more  pleased  vdth  the 
simplicity  and  freedom  of  the  New  England  Congregational  system. ' ' 
—lUd. 


196  MASTER     MINDS 

get  him  back,  and,  once  there,  he  had  to  stay  for  two  long 
years  for  lack  of  the  few  extra  coin  to  carry  him  on  the 
stage  back  to  Worcester. 

Trained  to  face  situations  originally,  not  to  be  a  crammed 
and  prodded  little  spender  always  dependent  upon 
another,  George  acted  with  such  attack  upon  his  studies, 
extracting  essentials  out  of  their  mixture  with  unessentials, 
that  men  like  Hildreth,  the  annalist,  and  Benjamin  Abbott, 
even  then  ascribed  to  him  ''the  stamina  of  a  distinguished 
man. ' ' 

In  the  year  1813,  when  only  thirteen,  he  entered  Har- 
vard, at  the  time  a  college  small  in  quantity,  but  in  qual- 
ity great  in  men  like  Sparks,  Palfrey,  Samuel  Eliot  and 
Edward  Everett.  Stimulus  to  original  writing  lay  in  the 
air  of  this  expanding  centre  of  American  scholars,  out  of 
which  at  seventeen,  in  1817,  Bancroft  was  graduated  with 
the  second  English  oration.  June  27th,  1818,  sent  by  the 
college  he  had  markedly  impressed,  and  granted  a  scholar- 
ship of  seven  hundred  dollars  a  year,  Bancroft  departed 
for  Germany. 

BANCROFT   THE    EUROPEAN    STUDENT 

Gottingen  in  a  night  had  become  a  small  circle  of  schol- 
ars through  the  sudden  exit  of  twenty-five  hundred  stu- 
dents, owing  to  a  town  and  gown  row.  These  scholars  and 
instructors  were  inspired  ^vith  the  genius  of  scholarship, 
whose  inclination  from  close  contact  was  contagious.  As  to 
his  course  Bancroft  wrote:  "Of  German  theological  works 
I  have  read,  till  I  find  there  is  in  them  everything  which 
learning  and  acuteness  can  give,  and  that  there  is  in  them 
nothing  which  religious  feeling  and  reverence  for  Chris- 
tianity can  give. ' ' 


QEOBOE   BANCROFT  197 

Hence  his  course  turned  his  mind  to  other  channels  than 
the  theological,  while  from  Biblical  studies  he  veered  to 
Oriental  languages  and  history. 

Starting  upon  the  ideal  set  by  Eichom,  to  study  from 
ten  to  fifteen  hours  a  day,  he  rose  at  five  and  ground  over 
books  and  lectures  till  eleven  at  night.  In  1820  he  became 
a  doctor  of  philosophy,  a  degi'ee  heading  that  long  series  of 
degrees  which  later  followed  him  from  Oxford  back  into 
America  from  one  university  after  another. 

Unlike  certain  Americans  of  lesser  status,  Bancroft's 
originality  of  mind  and  peerlessness  of  judgment  never 
shone  clearer  than  in  his  estimates  of  continental  life. 
While  appreciating  German  virtues  to  a  degree  that  the 
Germans  came  to  say,  "He  is  one  of  us,"  he  refused  to  be 
expatriated,  and  retained  a  New  England  conscience  in  all 
its  essential  insight.  Rare  technical  culture  and  the  expert 
scholarship  of  specialists  he  discovered  and  lauded  as  the 
Germanic  contribution  to  truth.  But  the  separation  of  this 
scholarship  from  character  he  at  once  detected.  Such  men 
as  Wolf,  whose  brilliant  abilities  as  scholars  amazed  him, 
awoke  by  their  private  home-life  and  treatment  of  women, 
only  detestation.  Biblical  scholars  so  devoid  of  charity 
that  they  took  the  silver  shoe-buckles  for  fees  from  poor 
students  who  had  nothing  else  to  give,  alike  pained  him. 

Continental  standards  of  society  he  refused  to  hide  under 
"fine  art."  Goethe's  Bohemianism  he  declaimed  against 
as  "indecency  and  immorality,  in  which  he  preferred  to 
represent  vice  as  lovely  and  exciting,"  "and  would  rather 
take  for  his  heroine  a  prostitute  or  profligate  than  to  give 
birth  to  that  purity  of  thought  and  loftiness  of  soul." 

At  a  supper  given  by  the  pro-rector  of  the  university,  he 
flushed  as  he  heard  a  professor  rise  and  ejaculate  with  a 


198  MASTERMINDS 

flourish,  "He  who   does  not   love  wine,  women   and   song 
remains  a  fool  all  the  days  of  his  life. ' ' 

In  such  an  atmosphere  he  wrote,  "I  do  not  myself  be- 
lieve that  my  reverence  for  a  religion  which  is  connected 
with  all  my  hopes  of  happiness  and  usefulness  and  distinc- 
tion can  be  diminished  by  ridicule." 

While  this  discrimination  existed,  it  did  not  shut  his  eyes 
to  the  rare  culture  and  educative  genius  of  such  specialists, 
and  he  learned  from  it  what  he  could,  aiming  to  become 
a  scholar  as  well  as  a  clergyman,  on  his  return  to  America. 
History  and  languages  along  with  church  development  and 
Biblical  exegesis  formed  the  core  of  his  tasks  from  five  in 
the  morning  till  eleven  at  night.  The  ideal  he  had  adopted, 
to  study  and  attend  lectures  from  ten  to  fifteen  hours  a 
day,  he  studiously  followed. 

In  vacation,  following  the  example  of  American  students 
like  Ticknor  and  Everett  in  tramping  through  Germany,  he 
met  Goethe  and  other  German  geniuses  at  their  homes  and 
gardens.  His  admiration  of  the  technique  of  scholarship 
continued  to  grow  adversely  to  his  estimate  of  continental 
character,  Bancroft  maintaining  that  he  was  "too  Ameri- 
can, ' '  and  could  ' '  not  endure  the  coarseness  of  their  amuse- 
ments, and  still  less  of  their  vices. ' ' 

In  1820  he  became  a  doctor  of  philosophy.  For  his  third 
year,  feeling  "that  erudition"  for  which  his  school  stood, 
when  taken  alone,  a  dead  weight  on  society,  he  left  Gottin- 
gen  and  chose  Berlin,  where  "the  grand  aim  is  to  make 
men  think." 

The  eye-flashing  and  electric  reverence  of  Schleier- 
macher,  at  once  a  combination  of  spiritual  seer  and  Teu- 
tonic sage,  captured  Bancroft  mind  and  soul. 

"Virtue,  the  life  of  study  and  cheerfulness,"  together 
with  "literary  activity  and    domestic    quiet,"    "with   the 


GEORGE    BANCROFT  199 

calm  and  pure  delight  of  friendship, ' '  he  now  laid  down  as 
his  programme  for  the  future. 

In  the  vacation  intervaJs  he  was  to  spend  a  few  weeks  in 
Heidelberg,  then  in  Paris,  where  was  a  meeting  with  Schle- 
gel,  Baron  Von  Humboldt,  Cuvier,  Lafayette  and  his 
great-souled  countryman,  Washington  Irving.  In  contrast 
to  seeking  the  panderers  to  American  swinishness  with 
which  Europe,  and  Paris  especially,  even  then  began  to 
swarm,  he  held  up  as  his  quest  "the  grand,  true  models  of 
uneorrupted  virtue." 

The  sublime  heights  of  the  Alps  and  the  depth  of  sorrow 
of  his  brother's  death  in  1821  aroused  his  desire  to  be  a 
prophet  of  the  soul. 

Little  did  he  think  then  that  it  was  his  country 's  soul  of 
which  he  would  be  the  prophet. 

"It  seemed,"  he  wrote,  "that  I  never  should  be  so 
happy;  as  if  God  would  one  day  teach  me  to  pray  earnestly 
and  preach  eloquently." 

"There  are  many  things  in  my  character  yet  to  be 
changed  or  improved.  I  long  to  become  more  deeply 
devout."  "At  home,  in  retirement,  there  will  be  many  an 
opportunity  of  becoming  well  acquainted  with  the  works 
of  the  pious  who  have  written  so  feelingly  on  religion. 
From  them  I  would  strive  to  learn  the  direct  way  to  win 
hearts. ' ' 

"I  began  to  feel  (January  1,  1822)  a  strong  desire 
of  engaging  in  the  ministry,  of  serving  at  the  altar  of  God ; 
I  would  so  willingly  rest  my  hope  of  distinction  in  the  hope 
of  being  eloquent  and  useful  in  preaching  the  grand  doc- 
trines of  Christianity,  in  speaking  of  God  as  the  Author  of 
the  universe  and  the  Source  of  all  science,  of  Christ  who 
has  made  us  acquainted  with  His  nature,  of  the  nature  and 


200  MASTERMINDS 

possibility  of  virtue,  of  the  duty  of  becoming  like  God ;  of 
life,  death  and  immortality. ' ' 

Even  his  physical  being  seemed  at  this  time  to  partake  of 
the  ideal  and  of  the  sublime  and  the  ethereal.  The  Alpine 
air  breathed  such  lightness  into  his  nature  that,  beside 
himself,  he  at  times  fell  to  shouting,  and  bounded  into 
the  air,  clicking  his  heels  and  sending  forth  peal  after 
peal  of  joy  in  sheer  exultancy  at  living. 

Perfectly  at  home  amid  the  literati  and  princely  figures 
of  Paris  in  their  salons  of  culture  and  aristocracy,  he  yet 
much  more  enjoyed  tramping  in  frayed  trousers  and  mth 
a  long  black  beard  on  his  face,  as  he  scaled  the  Alpine 
bridle-paths  of  Switzerland. 

' '  When  I  entered  Switzerland,  I  came  with  a  heavy  and 
desponding  heart.  One  event  after  another  had  happened 
to  crush  everything  like  cheerfulness  in  my  bosom,  and 
though  I  had  not  yet  gained  my  one  and  twentieth  year, 
my  mind  seemed  to  be  sear,  and  I  almost  thought  I  had  the 
heart  of  an  old  man.  But  I  reposed  on  the  bosom  of 
nature,  and  have  there  grown  young  again.  From  her 
breasts  gush  the  streams  of  life,  and  they  who  drink  them 
regain  cheerfulness  and  \agor;  I  traveled  alone;  I  was  on 
foot;  solitude  was  delightful;  I  could  give  way  to  the 
delightful  flow  of  feelings  and  reflections  as  I  sat  on  the 
Alpine  rocks  and  gazed  on  the  Alpine  solitudes. 
I  said  to  the  winds,  'Blow  on,  I  care  not  for 
ye;'  to  the  sun,  'Hide  thy  beams,  I  carry  a  sun  in  my 
bosom;'  to  the  rains,  'Beat  on,  for  my  thoughts  gush  upon 
me  faster  than  your  drops.'  " 

Eome  had  been  reached  November  26,  1821.  At  St. 
Peter's  he  confessed:  "I  threw  myself  on  my  knees  before 
the  grand  altar,  and  returned  thanks  to  God  for  guarding 
me  against  all  the  dangers  of  traveling.     My  parents  and 


GEORGE   BANCROFT  201 

every  member  of  my  family  were  remembered,  too,  in  those 
moments  of  my  life,  which  were  too  sweet  and  too  solemn 
ever  to  be  forgotten. ' ' 

In  European  cities  again  by  August,  1822,  his  meeting 
with  Byron  and  other  great  creative  personalities  marked 
a  red-letter  event. 

Returning  to  America  in  the  year  1822-23,  he  became 
tutor  at  Harvard,  though  he  still  looked  toward  the  minis- 
try. 

HIS  FOUR  FAILURES 

September  14  he  began  to  preach,  speaking  from  the  Sec- 
ond Parish  pulpit  in  Worcester  with  ' '  an  aim  to  be  earnest 
and  impressive  rather  than  oratorical,  and  to  write  serious, 
evangelical  sermons  rather  than  fashionable  ones." 

Lack  of  response  grew  evident,  and  though  he  preached 
thirty-six  times  this  year,  he  found  no  encouragement;  his 
manner,  it  was  thought,  being  artificial,  his  gestures  forced, 
and  his  presentation  of  truth  unacceptable  even  to  his 
father.  From  his  first  sermon  in  Worcester,  an  essay  on 
"Love,"  to  liis  final  attempts  in  county  towns,  he  gained 
no  hearing  that  would  encourage  him  to  go  on.  "A  high 
falsetto  and  strident  voice,"  unconventional  imagery, 
together  with  other  out^vard  forms  that  were  disliked,  were 
outward  and  visible  signs  that  to  the  people's  eye  of  that 
time  ruined  the  vision  he  presented  of  the  inner  and  spir- 
itual life.  The  verdict  of  almost  all  was  against  him. 
Nevertheless,  minds  with  insight  saw  the  kernel  back  of  the 
ruder  shell,  amongst  whom  was  Emerson,  who  declared  him- 
self ' '  delighted  with  his  eloquence.  So  were  all.  We  think 
him  an  infant  Hercules. ' ' 

No  pulpit,  however,  opened,  and  failure  "number  one" 
stared  Bancroft  in  the  face. 


202  MASTERMINDS 

Failure  "number  two"  was  now  ready  with  its  blow. 

College,  where  he  was  already  a  Harvard  tutor,  became 
' '  a  sickening  and  a  wearisome  place ;  not  one  spring  of  com- 
fort to  draw  from."  "Trouble,  trouble,  trouble,"  was  his 
conclusion  as  to  his  trials  as  a  teacher. 

"As  tutor  he  is  the  laughing-butt  of  all  the  college," 
wrote  liis  acquaintance,  Cogswell,  himself  a  dissatisfied 
tutor  and  returned  German  student. 

In  December,  1822,  Bancroft  determined  to  quit  the  tor- 
ture and  ' '  train  a  few  minds  to  virtue  and  honor  by  start- 
ing a  boys'  school,  the  end  to  be  the  moral  and  intellectual 
maturity  of  each  boy, "  as  "  our  country  needs  good  instruc- 
tors more  than  good  preachers." 

In  this  school  failure  "number  three"  is  here  to  be 
recorded.  Founding  in  connection  with  Cogswell  the 
Round  Hill  School  at  Northampton,  he  became  the  leading 
teacher,  while  his  friend  was  superintendent  of  the  other 
teachers  and  classes.  Sons  of  wealthy  families  failed  to 
appreciate  Bancroft's  genius,  and  he  perhaps  failed  to 
appreciate  their  leanings.  They  called  him  "the  crittur," 
and  eluding  his  gaze  when  they  misbehaved  in  the  school- 
room, dropped  on  all  fours.  Seeking  to  win  them  with 
gifts  of  peaches  in  his  orchard,  they  pelted  him  with  the 
pits. 

"Restraining  the  petulance,  and  assisting  the  weakness 
of  children  when  conscious  of  sufficient  courage  to  sustain 
collision  with  men,"  made  the  Head-master  restless.  He 
was  too  creative,  original  and  progressive  to  tie  himself 
down  to  such  detail.     So,  in  September,  1831,  he  withdrew. 

Failure  "number  four"  must  be  added  to  his  inability  to 
"make  good"  as  a  secondary  school  master.  It  was  as  a 
poet.  In  1823  he  had  published  a  book  of  poems  which  fell 
flat  as  an  enterprise,  both  professionally  and  pecuniarily. 


GEORGE   BANCROFT  203 

Amid  these  four  failures  Bancroft  wrote  text-books  for 
schools,  and  translated  "The  Politics  of  Ancient  Greece," 
this  being  one  of  tho  first  acts  showing  his  bent  toward  his- 
tory. In  1829  he  followed  this  with  a  translation  of  Hee- 
ren's  history  of  "The  Political  System  in  Europe." 
Between  1825-1834  he  cultivated  his  growing  power  by 
writing  seventeen  articles  for  the  North  American  Review, ' ' 
chiefly  on  European  scholarship,  also  an  article  on  "The 
Bank  of  the  United  States. ' ' 

SUCCESS 

By  this  blazed  way  of  history-writing  and  politics,  in  the 
midst  of  failure,  Bancroft  is  at  last  finding  himself. 

He  expressed  it  thus : 

"I  have  gained  self-confidence,  and  am  determined,  as 
the  Scripture  has  it,  to  work  out  my  own  salvation." 

In  1827  professionally  beginning  to  settle,  he  anchored  in 
other  ways  as  well,  and  founded  a  home  by  marrying  the 
daughter  of  Jonathan  Dwight  of  Springfield,  Sarah  H, 
Dwight,  who  presided  over  his  home  ten  years,  till  1837, 
when  she  died,  leaving  him  four  children. 

A  stay  of  several  months  at  the  Capitol  of  the  United 
States  introduced  him  in  1831-32  to  men  and  measures  of 
State,  all  of  which  excited  liis  dormant  tastes  for  the  twin 
talents  of  statesmanship  and  the  writing  of  history. 

Bancroft's  judgment  in  the  science  of  government,  from 
which  he  never  moved,  was  thus  expressed  in  1826  in  a 
political  speech : 

"The  government  is  a  democracy,  a  determined,  uncom- 
promising democracy,  administered  immediately  by  the 
people  or  by  the  people's  responsible  agents.  The  popular 
voice  is  all  powerful  with  us.     This  is  our  oracle. ' ' 


204  MASTERMINDS 

In  George  Bancroft  lay  the  genius  of  democracy  as  it 
exists  as  the  very  sap  of  the  liberty-tree  of  this  republic. 
From  it  he  never  swerved.  In  it  he  found  his  delight  and 
with  its  essence  his  soul  was  one.  With  it  he  grew, 
as  a  part  of  it,  and  it  as  a  part  of  him,  and  out  of  it  came, 
as  flower  and  fruit  from  the  root,  his  colossal  and  inspired 
History  of  the  United  States.^ 

In  him  as  an  embodiment  of  independence,  Aaron's  rod 
budded.  For  it  went  back  to  the  rootage  of  liberty,  to  his 
father,  Aaron  Bancroft,  at  Lexington  and  Bunker  Hill, 
only  to  come  out  in  the  nineteenth  century  in  his  remark- 
able history. 

"I  have  formed  the  design  of  writing  the  history  of  the 
United  States  from  the  discovery  of  the  American  Conti- 
nent to  the  present."  Such  one  day  at  this  time  he 
expressed  as  his  inspired  purpose. 

It  was  the  vision  of  his  destiny,  the  call  of  his  prophecy. 

The  first  volume  of  this  history  of  the  United  States 
appeared  in  1834. 

So  great  was  the  magnum  opus  that  in  1874  after  forty 
years  of  research  he  brought  the  history  only  to  the  repub- 
lic's start,  his  tenth  volume  ending  with  the  conclusion 
of  the  treaty  of  peace  in  1782. 

Yet  it  stands  nevertheless  preeminent  as  the  Histor>^  of 
the  United  States;  for  it  embodies  the  spirit  of  our  coun- 


1' '  Mr.  Bancroft  was  a  hearty  Democrat.  The  fact  that  he  really 
believed  in  the  wisdom  of  the  people,  as  opposed  to  classes,  was 
one  of  his  leading  qualifications  for  writing  sympathetically  the 
history  of  the  popular  movement  which  led  to  the  foundation  of 
the  United  States,  and  which  is  now  at  the  bottom  of  the  admin- 
istration of  its  affairs." — Samuel  S.  Green,  librarian  emeritus  Free 
Public  Library,  Worcester,  in  Proceedings  of  the  American  Anti- 
quarian Society,  April  29,  1S91. 


GEORGE   BANCROFT  205 

try,  its  conception,  its  genius,  its  birth,  its  birthnp^hts  as 
event  after  event  first  took  place  on  the  staple  of  the 
forests  and  fields  of  the  new  world. 

In  1834  Bancroft  was  defeated  for  Representative  of  the 
General  Court  from  Northampton — "failure  number  ^i^e/" 
But  such  defeats  meant  nothiuf^:.  Failure  as  a  preacher, 
tutor,  head  master,  poet,  are  now  with  this  defeat  to  be 
swallowed  up  in  the  might}',  sweepingsuccess  of  his  life-work. 

Justice  Story  and  Edward  Everett  led  a  chorus  of  great 
men  by  pronouncing  upon  the  first  volumes  with  great 
favor,  the  latter  calling  it:  "A  work  which  will  last  while 
the  memory  of  America  lasts,  and  which  will  instantly  take 
its  place  among  the  classics  of  our  language.  It  is  full  of 
learning,  information,  common  sense  and  philosophy,  full 
of  taste  and  eloquence,  full  of  life  and  power.  You  give 
us  not  wretched  pasteboard  men,  but  you  give  us  real,  indi- 
vidual, living  men  and  women,  with  their  passions,  inter- 
ests and  peculiarities." 

International  verdicts  came  from  across  the  sea.  Hee- 
ren  from  Gottingen  wrote,  declaring  he  had  the  true 
inspiration  of  the  historian,  and  adding  that  never  had  he 
been  so  agreeably  surprised. 

Bancroft  himself  is  carried  away  with  his  master  theme. 

In  1835,  still  at  Northampton,  he  whites  as  to  his  second 
volume  of  United  States  History: 

"The  topics  are  various,  grand  in  their  character  and 
capable  of  being  arranged  in  an  interesting  narrative. ' ' 

His  home,  vie-wing  as  it  did  the  beautiful  Connecticut 
valley,  silver-threaded  by  the  river,  began  to  be  a  centre 
for  literati  and  minds  of  great  calibre  from  this  country 
and  abroad,  all  of  whom,  by  his  enkindled  imagination  and 
unlocked  expression,  he  bestirred  with  tales  of  the  Indians, 
and  his  exposition  of  the  system  of  American  society. 


206  MASTERMINDS 

In  1835  Mr.  Bancroft  chang-ed  his  home  to  Sprin^eld, 
where  came  the  death  of  his  first  wife,  two  years  later, 
leaving  three  children,  aged  four,  two  and  one. 

AugTist  16,  1838,  Bancroft  married  a  second  time,  uniting 
in  marriage  with  Mrs.  Elizabeth  Davis  Bliss,  a  widow  with 
two  boys,  and  a  home  in  Boston.  As  a  representative  Dem- 
ocrat, the  young  historian  was  at  this  time  appointed  collec- 
tor of  the  port  in  Boston  by  President  Van  Buren.  While 
in  this  position  he  gave  a  place  to  Nathaniel  Hawthorne. 

June  13,  1838,  the  second  volume  of  his  history  Thomas 
Carlyle  hailed  as  conveying  ' '  its  glimpses  of  the  old  prime- 
val forest  in  its  hot,  dark  strength  and  tangled  savagery 
and  putrescence,  Virginia  planters,  with  their  tobacco 
pouches,  galloping  amid  the  'buckskin  kye'  in  the  glades  of 
the  wildwood,  Puritans  stern  of  visage,  warm  and  sound 
of  heart!" 

In  1840  was  finished  the  third  volume  of  the  history. 


BANCROFT  THE  STATESMAN 

In  1844  Bancroft  was  a  defeated  candidate  for  Demo- 
cratic Governor  of  Massachusetts,  but  still  remained  in- 
tensely interested  in  the  Presidential  contest  between  Whig 
and  Democrat.  Polk  being  elected,  Bancroft  found  himself 
a])pointed  Secretary  of  the  Navy  of  the  United  States.  It 
was  a  crucial  and  telling  incumbency,  for  by  his  order  in 
the  contest  of  ' '  fifty-four  forty  or  fight, ' '  the  Oregon  boun- 
dary was  settled  in  the  Northwest,  and  in  the  event  of  the 
IMexican  War  it  was  by  his  orders  that  the  United  States 
commander  proceeded  to  take  California  and  General  Tay- 
lor to  take  Texas.  He  founded  the  National  Observatory  at 
Washington  and  the  Naval  Academy  at  Annapolis  in  1846. 


GEORGE   BANCROFT  207 

But,  important  as  his  post,  in  the  midst  of  the  Mexican 
War,  Bancroft  terminated  his  portfolio  to  become  ambas- 
sador to  Ens^land. 

England's  stare  of  wonder  at  the  expansion  of  the 
United  States  into  its  great  new  territories  in  the  North- 
west, South  and  West ;  English  joy  at  the  Mississippi  val- 
ley's inexhaustible  new  staple,  Indian  com;  diplomatic 
confidences  as  to  France  and  Mexico,  with  which  France 
had  futilely  intermeddled,  and  conferences  also  with  Queen 
Victoria, — all  betray  a  mind  gauged  to  the  world's  broad 
platform,  but  intensely  American.  To  W.  H.  Prescott,  the 
historian,  he  wrote  between  the  lines  of  such  affairs  of  for- 
eign states,  sighing  for  ' '  Republican  air ! ' ' 

Yet  a  host  of  men  of  letters  of  the  Victorian  era  made 
the  embassy  delightful,  among  them  Thackeray.  Carlyle, 
Milman,  Maeaulay,  Dickens  and  Hallam.  To  his  delight 
he  found  his  own  books  of  history  equally  advertised  on 
London  stalls  as  Christmas  gifts  of  a  high  order,  as  well 
known  and  read  in  London  as  in  Boston. 

"I  met  him  everj^where, "  said  Robert  C.  Winthrop, 
"and  witnessed  the  high  estimation  in  which  he  was  held 
by  literary  men  like  Rogers,  Hallam  and  Allison  and  Mil- 
man,  and  by  statesmen  like  Peel,  Palmerston  and  Russell." 

In  Paris  in  1847,  while  he  met  Guizot,  Thierry,  Lamar- 
tine  and  the  French  King  and  Queen,  he  insisted  upon 
spending  much  of  his  daylight  hours  searching  the  archives 
of  the  French  alcoves.  In  Great  Britain  politically  he 
increased  England's  enlarged  estimate  of  America  and 
secured  great  international  improvements  in  postal  laws. 

Chiefly,  however,  he  found  the  embassy  helpful  because 
of  his  chance  for  research  for  facts  as  to  America's  found- 
ing, in  letters  and  documentary^  folios  long  laid  away  in 
England's  splendid  archives. 


208  MASTERMINDS 

The  making-  of  modem  history  he  also  watched  from  the 
process  of  other  nations,  notably  the  spread  of  Republi- 
canism in  Europe  and  its  popularity  in  France  in  contrast 
to  monarchy's  brief  appearance  on  the  shifting  stage.  At 
this  period  he  took  breath  to  exclaim,  "I  must  write  the 
history  of  the  Eevolution  before  life  ebbs." 

In  1848  the  Whig  victory  in  America,  electing  Gen- 
eral Taylor,  unseated  him  from  his  post  as  ambassador  and 
enabled  him  to  return  to  write  in  his  history  the  opening 
of  the  Revolution,  and  ''tell  how  Prescott  defended  Bun- 
ker Hill,  how  Franklin  swayed  France,  how  the  invincible 
Washington  not  only  was  the  bravest  in  war,  but  the  wise, 
loving,  generous  creating  father  of  our  blessed  form  of  gov- 
ernment. ' ' 

Upon  his  return  in  1849,  he  chose  to  live  in  New  York 
city  for  eighteen  years,  until  1867.  There  the  history  pro- 
ceeded with  rapid  strides.  Three  volumes  of  the  history 
having  been  completed  in  the  previous  eighteen  years,  seven 
were  before  him  yet  to  be  written.  His  plan  was  to  write 
history  by  the  almanac,  and  he  recorded  each  day  as  he 
passed  it  in  review,  adding  every  detail  of  value.  Many 
thousands  of  his  o\\ti  money  he  paid  copyists  and  tran- 
scribers. Many  journeys  on  research  for  unprinted  letters 
he  himself  undertook,  whether  it  be  to  the  Falls  of  St. 
Anthony,  at  the  head  of  the  Misvsissippi,  or  to  great  houses 
on  plantations  in  Tennessee.  The  manuscript  once  ferreted 
out,  it  is  said,  he  handled  "A^dth  the  furtive  quickness  of 
a  raccoon." 

"I  know  not  which  more  to  admire,"  wrote  Theodore 
Parker  in  1854,  "the  mighty  diligence  which  collects  all 
the  facts  and  words,  even  the  minutest  articles  of  charac- 
teristic manner,  or  the  subtle  art  which  frames  them  into 
so  nice  a  picture  of  the  progress  of  the  people  and  the  race 


GEORGE   BAN  CROFT  209 

— the  most  noble  and  splendid  piece  of  historical  com- 
position, not  only  in  Enp:lish,  but  in  any  ton^ie." 

"What  surprised  and  charmed  me,"  wrote  Emerson, 
"the  history  starts  tears  and  almost  makes  them  overflow 
on  many  and  many  a  pa^e. " 

Yet  with  all  these  encomiums  and  encouragements,  Ban- 
croft knew  that  coping  with  such  a  mighty  theme,  a  human 
hand  must  have  limitations,  and  these  he  sought  to  know 
more  jealously  than  laudations. 

In  1858,  while  on  "The  Battle  of  Bunker  Hill,"  he  wrote 
Dr.  Frothingham,  the  eminent  author  of  "The  Siege  of 
Boston,"  and  said: 

"Take  your  copy  of  Volume  VII,  fill  it  full  of  cavils, 
criticisms  and  questionings,  especially  on  the  Battle  of 
Bunker  Hill,  and  send  it  to  me.  Be  as  severe  and  hyper- 
critical as  I  was. ' ' 

His  library  became  a  historical  arsenal  of  books  and 
documents,  growing  from  twelve  thousand  to  fifteen  thou- 
sand to  finally  thirty  thousand  volumes,  all  of  which  are 
now  stored  in  the  Lenox  Library,  New  York. 

In  this  library,  by  working  solidly  mornings  and  exercis- 
ing afternoons,  he  produced  three  hundred  words  each  new 
day  in  his  careful,  painstaking  creation  of  the  history. 

In  1857  he  supported  Buchanan,  who  was  against  the 
"propensities  of  the  black  Republicans."  Then  he  fell 
into  sympathy  with  Douglas. 

Bancroft  had  a  wonderful  power  to  visualize  history  and 
dissect  statesmanship.  Yet  it  is  hard  to  understand  that 
a  mind  which  so  mystified  "Washington  with  glory,  should 
at  first  utterly  fail  to  see  it  in  Lincoln.  "We  who  have 
preferred  another  public  servant, ' '  was  the  phrase  in  which 
he  declared  himself  as  to  Lincoln,  whom  he  characterized 
as  "a  President  without  brains."  Further  caricaturing 
14 


210  MASTERMINDS 

him  as  dominated  and  henpecked  by  his  wife,  he  ended 
thus: 

' '  Things  do  not  look  very  promising. "  "  We  suffer  from 
want  of  any  organizing  mind  at  the  head  of  the  govern- 
ment."  "Our  poor  country,  under  incompetent  hands,  is 
going  to  ruin." 

Yet  for  all  this  he  soon  atoned,  and  from  all  this  he  was 
soon  aroused.  He  had  always  stood  uncompromisingly 
with  the  North  against  slavery.  Now  he  broke  entirely 
with  the  Southern  and  Northern  Democracy,  standing 
against  the  ' '  Nullification  of  the  Constitution ' '  and  against 
the  "Dred  Scot  Decision."  The  compromising  party  of 
the  Democracy  he  came  to  call  "the  bastard  race  that  con- 
trols the  organization — this  unproductive  hybrid  begot  by 
Northern  arrogance  upon  Southern  subserviency," 
"Northern  Democracy"  was  "dreadfully  routed,"  he 
exclaimed,  "and  handed  over  to  the  most  corrupt  set  of 
political  opponents." 

By  the  impending  conflict  he  stood  unfalteringly,  stating 
to  English  critics  that  "our  Rebellion  is  a  proof  of  the 
vitality  of  Republican  principles.  Slavery  was  an  anomaly 
in  a  Democratic  country.  The  doctrine  of  liberty  is  proved 
true  by  the  fact  that  it  will  not  be  reconciled  with 
slavery. ' ' 

The  mighty  recoil  of  the  north  when  Fort  Sumter,  with 
the  Stars  and  Stripes,  was  fired  upon,  he  described  as  "the 
sublimest  spectacle  I  ever  knew,  the  uprising  of  the  irresis- 
tible spirit  of  a  free  people  in  behalf  of  law,  order  and 
liberty." 

These  views  led  Bancroft  along  the  track  to  Lincoln's 
personality,  which  he  finally,  however  late,  saw  through, 
accepted,  loved,  and  led  the  country  in  crowning  with 
tribute. 


GEORGE   BANCROFT  211 

In  1862,  everywhere  reco^ized  as  the  foremost  scholar 
in  public  life,  he  was  nominated  by  the  Republicans  for 
Congress,  but  declined. 

In  tlie  midst  of  the  war  he  was  chosen  to  voice  the  cause 
in  the  great  Cooper  Institute  oration  in  New  York,  where 
in  America's  chief  city  he  stood  the  dominant  oracle  of  the 
principle  at  issue. 

At  Lincoln's  funeral  it  was  he  again,  above  all  others,  to 
whom  the  country  turned  as  America's  highest  exponent 
when  it  invited  him  to  deliver  the  funeral  oration  of  the 
martyred  President. 

In  1867  appointed  minister  to  Berlin  by  Johnson's  ad- 
ministration, he  remained  seven  years  on  into  Grant's  pres- 
idency, watching  the  German  states  moulded  by  Bis- 
marck into  nationalism,  and  at  times  himself  consorting 
with  the  King,  then  in  process  of  becoming  an  Emperor. 

Bancroft  returned  at  the  end  of  Grant's  administration 
to  reside  in  Washington.  Even  more  highly  confirmed  as 
the  foremost  American  scholar  in  the  public  eye,  he  was 
granted  as  no  other  citizen  equality  with  its  Senators  and 
Congressmen,  even  on  the  floors  of  the  Senate  and  House  of 
Representatives.  Furthermore,  he  was  granted  equality 
with  President,  Cabinet  and  Supreme  Court  judges,  who 
exchanged  calls  upon  him  as  upon  one  whose  station  was 
on  a  level. 

Choosing  Washington  as  his  residence,  he  selected  a 
spacious  double  mansion  but  a  stone's  throw  from  the 
White  House,  where  behind  the  hyacinths  on  the  lawn  he 
sat  down  to  spend  the  long  afternoon  of  a  life  already  so 
signal  in  accomplishment  and  creative  toil. 

Rising  at  five  in  summer  and  six  in  winter,  with  break- 
fast at  eight,  his  mornings  were  sacred  to  his  work  on  his- 
tory, up  to  two  or  three  o'clock.     No  visitors  were  then 


212  MASTERMINDS 

allowed.  After  this,  often  without  lunch,  at  three  lie 
sprang  into  his  saddle  every  day  and  was  off  to  complete, 
even  at  eighty-five,  rides  as  long  as  thirtj^-two  miles  in 
extent. 

In  1874  appeared  the  tenth  volume  of  the  history,  dealing 
with  the  fourth  epoch  of  the  Revolution,  and  bringing  it 
up  to  the  Treaty  of  Peace  in  1781. 

"Scarcely  one  who  \^'^shed  me  good  speed  when  I  first 
engaged  to  trace  the  history  of  America  remains  to  greet 
me  with  a  welcome  as  I  near  the  goal,"  was  his  remark  at 
the  close  of  the  tenth  volume. 

The  unprecedented  popularity  of  the  history  necessitated 
edition  after  edition. 

In  the  summers  he  spent  the  vacation  season  at  Newport, 
in  "Rose  Clyfi'e, "  a  rambling  home  overlooking  the  sea  and 
half  hid  by  roses,  his  favorite  flower. 

The  rest  of  the  year  in  Washington,  with  his  erect  figure 
and  his  rapidly  whitening  hair  and  beard,  he  was  marked 
as  he  strode  the  floor  of  Senate  or  House,  or  the  Capitol 
Avenue,  as  a  national  figure  more  permanent  than  passing 
presidents. 

Even  the  little  children  in  Washington  recognized  him 
as  a  father,  and  cried,  "Here  comes  Grandfather  Santa 
Clans  upon  his  fine  horse. ' ' 

Yet  in  all  of  this  he  was  unspoiled  and  as  simple  as  a 
child. 

Springing  off  his  spirited  horse,  which  he  rode  daily,  he 
would  essay,  for  instance,  to  rebuckle  the  girth  of  one  of 
the  mount  of  a  troop  of  young  friends  galloping  by  his 
side,  saAang  to  a  little  maid  as  she  thanked  him : 

"Don't  call  me  Mr.  Bancroft;  call  me  George." 

"Are  you  not  very  imprudent  at  your  age  to  be  riding  on 
horseback?"  a  contemporary  asked. 


GEORGE   BANCROFT  213 

"Are  you  not  very  imprudent  at  your  age  not  to  be 
riding  on  horseback?"  he  replied. 

Here  in  the  spot  of  which  he  had  said,  ' '  I  may  choose  to 
draw  my  mantle  around  me  before  I  depart,"  he  did  not 
seem  so  much  to  grow  old  as  to  ripen. 

"The  true  manner  of  being  in  old  age  is  to  gather  a  cir- 
cle of  friends,  who,"  he  said,  "are  devoted  to  the  culture 
of  truth,  think  with  the  freedom  of  men  gifted  with  reason, 
and  patient  or  even  fond  of  differences  of  opinion.  If  but 
half  dozen  of  such  men  would  but  meet  weekly  at  dinner  at 
my  house,  I  should  find  instruction  and  delight,  and  beguile 
infirmities  of  years  by  the  perennial  never-ending  enjoy- 
ment of  friendship  and  intelligence. ' ' 

Such  was  the  circle  with  wliich  he  was  surrounded,  and 
amid  which  he  grew  from  gi*ay  to  white. 

Yet  this  did  not  mean  cessation  of  industry  nor  a  killing 
of  time. 

' '  A  game  of  cards  I  never  can  consent  to  take  a  hand  in 
without  shame  for  waste  of  time,"  he  declared. 

Only  nine  years  before  his  death,  in  1882,  he  remarked, 
"I  was  trained  to  look  upon  life  here  as  a  season  for  labor. 
Being  more  than  fourscore  years  old,  I  know  the  time  for 
my  release  will  soon  come.  Conscious  of  being  near  the 
shore  of  eternity,  I  await  with  impatience  and  without 
dread  the  hand  which  will  soon  beckon  me  to  rest. ' ' 

Notwithstanding  such  declarations,  in  1887,  as  though  a 
young  man  he  set  out,  eighty-seven  years  old,  on  a  journey 
to  Nashville,  Tennessee,  to  search  for  Polk's  letters. 

In  the  years  1882-85  he  made  the  last  revision  of  the  sev- 
eral revisions  of  his  ten-volumed  history.  He  had  made 
previous  revisions,  but  this  he  especially  chastened  and 
pruned. 


214  MASTER     MINDS 

In  1888,  though  eighty-eight  years  old,  he  wrote  the  "His- 
tory of  the  Formation  of  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States." 

In  reply  to  a  question,  he  said  of  the  Constitution,  "I 
have  your  letter  asking  what  changes  had  better  be  made 
in  the  Constitution.  I  know  of  none.  If  any  change  is 
needed,  it  is  in  ourselves,  that  we  may  more  respect  that 
basis  of  primal  law.  "^ 

Bancroft  not  only  "WTote,  like  Cicero,  classics  on  old  age 
— he  lived  a  classic  old  age. 

"Let  us  old  folks  cheer  one  another  as  we  draw  nearer 
and  nearer  to  the  shores  of  eternity,  which  are  already  in 
full  sight,"  he  insisted.  "I  contemplate  my  end  with  per- 
fect tranquillity,  thinking  death  should  be  looked  upon 
neither  with  d^ire  nor  fear. — Old  age  is  like  sitting  under 
the  trees  of  the  garden  in  early  winter;  the  bloom  and  ver- 
dure of  summer  are  gone;  by  their  departure  it  becomes 
easier  to  see  the  stars." 

On  the  last  Sunday  in  December  of  1890,  Senator  George 
Frisbie  Hoar  called  upon  the  nonagenarian  historian  in  his 
library : 

"It  was  not  an  old  man's  memory  of  the  past,"  said 
Senator  Hoar,  ' '  but  the  fresh  and  vigorous  thought  on  new 
topics  which  were  suggested  to  him  in  conversation.  I 
think  he  exhibited  a  quickness  and  vigor  of  thought,  and 
spoke  with  a  beauty  of  diction  that  no  man  I  know  could 
have  surpassed." 

Not  long  after  this,  January  17th,  1891,  when  ninety-one 
years  old,  nine  years  before  the  century  with  which  he 


lOne    of    his    most    earnest    monographs    was    one    entitled,    "A 
Plea  for  the  Constitution  Wounded  in  the  House  of  its  Guardians." 


GEORGE   BAN  CROFT  215 

began  ended,   Bancroft's   soul   went  to  the   God   of   his- 
tory.^ 

BANCROFT  A  PROPHET  OF  HIS  COUNTRY 

Bancroft's  life  began  with  the  failure  of  the  priest.  It 
ended  with  the  halo  of  the  prophet. 

The  memory  of  the  little  pulpits  that  refused  him  is 
swallowed  up  under  the  sounding-boards  of  the  nation, 
where  he  was  sought  to  voice  her  oracles  and  interpret  her 
destiny. 

Bancroft  was  a  prophet ! 

As  the  Hebrew  prophets  were  misinterpreted  and  refused 
the  Temple,  so  was  he;  as  the  Hebrew  prophet  in  the 
grand  old  original  of  the  term  wrote  the  history  of  the  past, 
and  the  statesmanship  of  the  present,  and  penetrated  and 
shot  it  through  with  insight,  so  did  he.  He,  like  them,  was 
a  historical  prophet,  a  seer,  and  extracted  out  of  the  past  the 
laws  for  the  future,  whether  of  judgment  or  of  promise. 
They  wrote  history,  the  history  of  a  leading  people  of  the 
world ;  so  did  he.  They,  relegated  to  obscurity,  at  darkest 
crises  when  professional  prophets  and  priests  were  dumb, 
were  called  from  the  places  where  they  were  snubbed  as 
nobodies  or  crushed  under  heel,  to  become  for  their  nation 
in  jeopardy  tongues  of  fire.  As  they  were  then  called, 
exactly  so  was  he.  They  interpreted  the  hand  of  God  in 
history;  so  did  he.  That  made  them  prophets;  so  did 
that  make   Bancroft  a  prophet.     He  was,    at   his   best,  a 


"iHistorian  of  America  he  made  it  the  high  purpose  of  a  life 
which  nearly  spanned  a  century  to  show  her  part  in  the  advance- 
ment of  man  and  from  the  resources  of  his  genius,  his  learning 
and  his  labor  to  ennoble  the  story  of  her  birth." — From  the  inscrip- 
tion upon  Ms  tomh  in  Rural  Cemetery,  Worcester,  Massachusetts. 


216  MASTER     MINDS 

prophet  of  his  country  in  the  grand  sense  of  the  Mosaic 
and  Hebrew  seer.  So,  at  the  obscurity  at  first,  he  was  pre- 
dominantly so  at  the  last.  In  form,  patriarchal  with  white 
beard  and  piercing  eye,  with  nose  like  an  eagle's  beak;  in 
spirit  well  poised,  rising  against  the  wind,  he  led  American 
minds  up  from  the  hot  tangled  wilderness,  out  of  the  clear- 
ing, to  the  stage  in  which  God's  men  have  moved  according 
to  His  will,  and  God's  enemies  have  equally  fallen  accord- 
ing to  His  will. 

"It  is  because  God  is  visible  in  History,"  Bancroft 
declared,  ' '  that  its  office  is  the  noblest. ' ' 

"She  not  only  watches  the  great  encounters  of  life,  but 
recalls  what  had  vanished,  and  partaking  of  a  bliss  like  that 
of  creating,  restores  it  to  animated  being.  History,  as 
she  reclines  in  the  lap  of  eternity,  sees  the  mind  of  human- 
ity itself  engaged  in  formative  efforts,  constructive 
sciences,  promulgating  laws,  organizing  commonwealths 
and  displaying  its  energies  on  the  visible  monument  of  its 
intelligence.  Of  all  pursuits  that  require  analysis,  history 
therefore  stands  first.  It  is  grander  than  the  material 
sciences,  for  its  study  is  man,  the  last  work  of  creation,  and 
the  most  perfect  in  its  relation  with  the  Infinite. 

' '  Each  page  of  history  may  begin  and  end  with :  Great  is 
God,  and  marvelous  are  His  works  among  the  children  of 
men. — And  I  defy  a  man  to  penetrate  the  secrets  and  laws 
of  events  without  something  of  faith.  He  may  look  on  and 
see,  as  it  were,  the  twinkling  of  stars  and  planets,  and 
measure  their  distances  and  motions,  but  the  life  of  history- 
will  escape  him.  He  may  pile  a  heap  of  stones,  but  he  will 
not  get  at  the  soul. '  * 


John  Rartholomeu'  Gough 
(The  third  picture  shows  Cough's  wife  also,  and  with  the  first  two,  taken  after 
his  reform,  is  from  rare  and  unprinted  daguerreotypes 
owned  l)y  his  niece) 


JOHN  BARTHOLOMEW  GOUGH 

GREATEST  APOSTLE  OP    TEMPERANCE 

WHILE  John  Bartholomew  Gough  as  a  soul  and  as 
a  personality  was  discovered  in  Worcester,  Massa- 
chusetts, in  the  latter  part  of  October,  1842,  he 
was  bom  in  Sandgate,  England,  August  22d,  1817,  twenty- 
five  years  before.  But  the  second  birth  is  the  real  point  of 
departure  for  any  man 's  life  so  far  as  it  is  his  own  and  not 
his  ancestors'.  Therefore  we  commence  his  life  at  "Worces- 
ter, the  place  of  this  second  birth. 

"Seven  damning  years  of  degradation  from  eighteen 
to  twenty-five,"  as  he  termed  them,  landed  him  in  a  garret 
in  the  Massachusetts  city.  Already  his  girl  wife  and  his 
infant  child^  had  died.  He  himself  was  ready  to  go.  He 
aimed  at  the  railroad  track,  where,  having  drained  a  vial  of 
laudanum,  he  would  stretch  what  was  left  of  his  rum- 
soaked  frame  across  the  rail  and  end  all.  To  the  track 
he  did  go  down.  But  the  Beyond  at  first  held  him  back. 
Perhaps  it  would  not  end  all!  This  drove  him  again  to 
his  corner  in  a  cold  garret. 

' '  Though  thirty-eight  years  have  passed  away, ' '  he  later 
was  accustomed  to  say,  "that  garret  bedroom,  my  bed,  my 
broken  trunk,  the  window  on  the  roof,  the  little  strip  of 
carpet,  the  water-jug,  my  shabby  clothing  as  it  lay  on 
the  one  chair  in  the  room,  are  so  vividly  present  before 
me  that  were  I  an  artist,  I  could  reproduce  the  scene  in 
all  its  detail." 


lAs   gleaned  from  the  death   records   of   Worcester,   Gough 's  first 
wife  died  May  20th,  1842,  the  child  living  nine  days. 


218  MASTERMINDS 

This  is  an  unmarked  spot;  but  it  is  a  great  place,  for 
it  is  the  birth-place  of  John  Gough's  soul. 

"Here,"  he  declared,  "I  fought  that  battle  alone  for 
six  days." 

"What  battle  was  this,  and  why  did  he  go  back  here  to 
fight  it  out  and  begin  again? 

There  had  not  been  in  the  past  much  reason  that  he 
should.  Things  were  just  the  other  way.  A  strolling 
comic  singer  and  stage  "super"  when  he  had  four  weeks 
before  struck  "Worcester  in  the  fall  of  1842,  he  had  written 
his  wife  at  Newburyport  to  meet  him  at  the  stage-door 
and  let  him  take  her  to  a  modest  home,  near  the  place 
where  he  had  found  good  employment  at  skilled  labor  at 
Hutchinson  &  Crosby 's.  But  no  sooner  was  he  at  home  than 
he  cleared  out  his  little  house  of  the  furniture  he  had 
bought  and  sold  it  for  alcohol.  Two  quarts  of  stimulant 
for  the  w4fe,  who  by  this  time  was  in  a  decline,  he  fed  to 
himself  to  appease  his  uncontrollable  thirst.  But  half 
conscious  that  his  wife's  confinement  was  to  end  in  her 
own  death  and  that  of  her  new-born  infant,  more  like  a 
beast  than  a  man,  in  delirium  tremens  ten  days  he  lay 
drunk.  In  this  time  the  young  mother  died,  together  with 
the  infant.  But  after  the  marble  touch  of  her  dead  fore- 
head, Gough's  one  instinct  was  to  reach  again  for  the 
flask  beneath  the  pillow. 

Upon  this,  his  employers  denied  him  his  wages  except 
those  they  gave  him  for  his  needs.  But  he  refused  to  be 
thus  held  down.  Even  what  few  sticks  of  furniture  were 
left  after  the  funeral,  he  then  sold  for  whiskey.  These 
gone,  he  sold  himself  by  offering  to  any  drunken  set  of 
grog-shop  bums  who  would  treat  him  to  "a  bracer  and  a 
chaser,"  his  comic  songs,  his  jokes  and  his  ventrilo- 
quism. 


JOHN    B  ART  n  0  LOME  W    GOUGH     219 

Dis^ace  dragged  him  down  till,  as  though  wholly  given 
over  to  the  devil  and  mocking  at  all  things  good,  he  rose 
up  in  a  church  in  drunken  glee  and  passed  a  cuspidor  for 
the  alms-basin.  Fined  in  court,  and  now  branded  legally 
as  well  as  socially,  he  walked  out  to  insult  and  taunt  all 
that  was  good,  temperance  speakers  being  his  especial 
target. 

' '  Yet, ' '  he  declared,  ' '  a  change  was  about  to  take  place — 
a  circumstance  which  eventually  turned  the  whole  current 
of  my  life  into  a  new  and  unhoped-for  channel." 

It  was  this  event  that  accounts  for  his  return  off  the 
street  to  his  struggle  in  the  garret. 


GOUGH 'S  DISCOVERY  ON  THE  STREETS  OF  WORCESTER 

It  was  Sunday  evening.  All  the  day  he  had  been  lying 
around  half  drunk  in  the  meadows  in  the  countryside. 
Under  cover  of  night  he  was  sneaking  back.  But  the  attic 
would  be  cold  and  through  the  chinks  the  fall  frost  sting 
him.  He  shivered  as  he  clutched  his  tattered  coat  and 
knew  no  other  stood  between  him  and  winter.  He  thought 
again  of  the  railroad-track  and  laudanum.  Just  then  re- 
covering himself  from  a  stagger,  he  felt — some  one  tap 
him  on  the  shoulder!  Turning  to  meet,  not  the  clasp  of 
a  gruff  policeman,  but  the  surprise  of  a  kind  look,  he 
drank  in  the  sensation,  because  since  a  long  time  it  was 
the  first  display  of  human  cordiality. 

"It  went  right  to  my  heart,"  he  confessed,  "and  trou- 
bled the  waters  in  that  stagnant  pool  of  affection  and  made 
them  once  more  reflect  a  little  of  the  light  of  human  love. ' ' 

"Mr.  Gough,  I  believe,"  spoke  the  gentlemanly  voice  of 
an  unknown  person. 


220  3IA8TER3IIND8 

' '  That  is  my  name, ' '  Gougli  mumbled,  and  staggered  on. 

"You  have  been  drinldng  to-day."  The  kind  tone  ex- 
pelled resentment. 

"Yes,  sir,  I  have." 

' '  Why  did  you  not  sign  the  pledge  ? ' ' 

Gough  blurted  out  that  he  had  no  hope  of  ever  being 
sober  again,  adding  that  he  hadn't  a  friend  in  the  world, 
and  would  die  soon. 

The  stranger  took  his  arm,  melted  his  suspicions  with 
a  look  of  benevolence,  asked  if  he  would  not  like  again 
to  be  "respectable  and  esteemed,  well-clad,  and  sitting  in 
a  place  of  worship, — enabled  to  meet  old  friends, — a  useful 
member  of  society?" 

"No  expectation,"  Gough  muttered.  "Such  a  change 
is  not  possible." 

"Only  sig-n  our  pledge  and  I  will  warrant  that  it  shall 
be  so.  Sign  it  and  I  will  introduce  you,  myself,  to  good 
friends  who  will  take  an  interest  in  your  welfare  and  take 
pleasure  in  helping  you  to  keep  your  good  resolutions." 

Gough  confides  to  us  in  his  memories  that  his  crushed 
and  bruised  heart,  long  a  stranger  to  such  words  of  kind- 
ness, then  felt  awakening  within  it  new  feelings.  "A 
chord  had  been  touched,"  he  recounted,  "which  vibrated 
to  the  tone  of  love;  hope  once  more  dawned." 

"Well— I  will  sign  it." 

"When?" 

"I  cannot  do  so  to-night,  for  I  must  have  some  drink 
presently ;  but  certainly  I  will  to-morrow. ' ' 

"We  have  a  temperance  meeting  to-morrow  evening. 
Will  you  sign  it  then  ? ' ' 

"I  will." 

"That  is  right,"  said  he,  grasping  my  hand.  "I  will 
be  there  to  see  you." 


JO  RN    BARTHOLOMEW    O  0  TJ  0  TI     221 

''You  shall!"  said  Gough. 

In  his  aiitobioorraphy,  which  toerether  with  ''Sunlight 
and  Shadow"  and  "Platform  Echoes"  we  follow  as  the 
chief  sources  for  his  life,  he  concludes: 

"I  went  on  my  way  much  touched  by  the  kind  interest 
which  at  last  some  one  had  taken  in  my  welfare.  I  said 
to  myself:  'If  it  should  be  the  last  act  of  my  life,  I  will 
perform  my  promise  and  sign  it  even  though  I  die  in  the 
attempt,  for  that  man  has  confidence  in  me,  and  on  that 
account  I  love  him.'  " 

The  name  of  the  stranger  Gough  never  was  to  forget 
was  Joel  Stratton,  simply  a  waiter  at  a  temperance  hotel. 
Years  after  when  he  lay  sick  unto  death,  after  an  honest 
life  as  a  trusted  mechanic  in  Worcester,  the  man  he 
tapped  on  the  shoulder,  then  become  world-famed,  thus 
sought  him  out. 

"God  bless  you,  Joel  Stratton.  Thousands  are  thank- 
ful that  you  ever  lived."  Quoting  a  letter  received  that 
day  from  England  which  mentioned  Stratton 's  name  as 
one  "for  whom  we  often  pray  and  whom  we  all  love,"  he 
read  it  aloud. 

"When  I  laid  my  hand  on  your  shoulder  that  night,  I 
never  dreamed  all  this  would  come  to  pass,  did  you?" 
asked  the  sick  man. 

"No,"  said  Gough,  the  far-away  look  in  his  eyes  dim- 
ming with  tears, — "But — it — has!" 

Even  so  deep  from  a  man  so  simple  sank  this  touch  in 
a  man  so  low.  It  was  made  in  one  yet  drunk ;  a  man  then 
on  his  way  to  his  cups  at  a  hotel-bar  in  Lincoln  Square; 
a  man  about  to  drain  dry  the  next  hour  the  contents  of 
several  brandy  glasses ;  a  man  to  go  reeling  back  to  his 
garret  w'orse  than  ever, — and  yet  underneath  all  this, 
it  penetrated. 


222  MASTERMINDS 

Underneath  "many  a  man's  hunger  and  thirst  in  this 
world,  where  vice  is  virtue  misdirected  and  e\al  is  good  per- 
verted, is  a  deeper  hunger  and  thirst  of  which  the  former 
is  a  part,  though  perverted.  He  who  finds  this  finds  the 
man.  The  real  reformer  sees  this  and  seeks  not  simply  to 
destroy  a  thirst  for  conviviality,  or  an  inordinate  hunger  for 
love,  but  to  replace  it  with  higher  food  and  drink  and  feast 
of  soul  for  which  the  other  was  only  the  base  substitute  of 
a  blind  craving.  The  truest  redeemer  of  his  fellows  seeks 
not,  therefore,  to  destroy  passion,  but  to  tear  it  from  its 
perversion.  Like  most  sin,  intoxication  is  often  the  per- 
version of  the  good.  The  successful  restorer  of  his  kind 
will  therefore  not  seek  to  tear  down  the  mental  passion  of 
which  it  is  a  "sport,"  but  to  tear  the  passion  from  its 
perversion  and  leave  the  true  passion  in  its  place.  He 
will  put  something  else  in  place  of  that  which  the  blind 
reformer  only  condemns.  Unless  he  does  this,  no  tem- 
perance reform,  or  any  other,  will  ever  perpetuate  itself 
either  in  its  converts  or  in  society. 

Joel  Stratton,  waiter  that  he  was  upon  man's  wants, 
divined  this  fact — a  fact  as  deep  as  the  mind  of  the  author 
of  Christendom.  Stratton  saw  Gough's  perverted 
hunger  and  thirst  as  the  distortion  of  a  deeper  hunger  and 
thirst  that  was  not  satisfied,  but  that  Gough  had  only 
sought  to  satisfy  in  the  wrong  way.  In  its  place  there 
was  a  good  hunger  for  love  and  a  thirst  for  the  cordial 
of  human  confidence.  At  once  he  offered  these  objectives 
in  place  of  the  cup  and  company  that  cheer  but  inebriate. 
The  effect  was  immediate.  The  blind  hunger  and  thirst 
for  love  and  confidence  with  which  to  feast  his  soul  Gough 
had  mistakenly  sought  in  alcoholic  conviviality,  he  now  saw 
had  led  him  wrong.  He  saw  that  while  he  could  not  satiate 
the  deeper  cravings  there,  he  could   elsewhere.     He  saw 


JOHN    BARTHOLOMEW    GOUGII     223 

that  Joel  Stratton  did  not  destroy  his  hunger  for  love  and 
thirst  for  society,  but  replaced  the  lower  with  a  higher, 
whose  satisfaction  he  projected  before  the  lost  toper  whom 
he  had  found  again.  Leaving  the  base  substitute,  Strat- 
ton let  Gough  keep  the  underlying  passion  and  direct  it 
toward  this  new  objective  of  human  hearts  till,  lo, — in  time, 
Gough  poured  out  his  soul  and  gained  the  cordiality  of 
millions  who  in  turn  poured  their  souls  back  in  love  and 
confidence !  Of  this  more  than  most,  he  could  drink  with 
men  and  Joel  Stratton  showed  him  how — but  in  a  better  way. 

Ah,  Joel  Stratton !  Your  finger,  though  that  of  a  waiter 
and  a  serving  man,  touched^  the  point  of  magic  change,  and 
under  your  touch,  though  intuitive  and  infinitely  quick,  was 
set  to  working  a  law  of  human  redemption  successful  from 
the  practice  of  man's  Master  Redeemer  till  to-day. 

Straight  in  line  with  all  that  latest  mind  studies  have 
revealed  was  Joel  Stratton 's  second  point.  He  had  Gough 
follow  emotion  with  execution — made  him  make  it  a  part 
of  himself — made  him  take  the  pledge,  and  act,  not  merely 
feel. 

Gough  could  not  get  away  from  that.  He  awoke  in  the 
morning  w^hen  the  dawning  light  fell  upon  the  new  hope 
and  the  night's  promise.  Yet  the  fateful  pledge  in  per- 
formance of  the  promise  was  to  be  made  that  Mon- 
day night.  "But  bitters  in  the  stomach  or  death" — he 
moaned,  and  strung  his  nerves  by  a  whiskey  sling.  At  noon 
once  more  he  partook  of  the  old  stimulant  as  a  farewell 
health  to  the  devil. 

Then  began  the  battle  terrible.  Under  cover  of  dusk, 
he  forced  his  steps  to  the  lower  Town  Hall  in  Worcester. 


i"He  touched    me!"   were  the  words   in  Gough 's  later   speeches 
from  which  vibrated  a  world  of  meaning  and  of  pathos. 


224  MASTERMINDS 

In  an  old  hand-me-down  brown  overcoat  which  he  clenched 
about  his  neck  to  cover  his  worse  ^^ndercoat  of  rags,  he 
rose  at  the  time  for  testimony. 

The  love-light  of  Joel  Stratton's  searching  eyes  sought 
him  out  and  again  found  his  soul,  so  that  he  dared  lift  a 
drink-palsied  hand  and  draw  the  curtain  from  the  chapter 
of  his  life  thus  far. 

Invoking  an  imagination  that  surprised  himself  and  en- 
thralled his  hearers  as  it  was  from  that  time  to  sway  them 
in  ever  increasing  circles,  he  stood  again  as  twenty-five 
years  before  at  the  edge  of  the  English  sea  and  at  the 
ocean  brink  of  a  mother's  love.  He  recalled  his  father, 
a  pensioner  of  the  English  Army,  of  Corunna,  of  Talavera 
and  of  Salamanca.  He  recalled  County  Kent  where  was 
his  sire's  humble  cot,  and  in  which  his  military  sternness 
was  the  background  of  the  other  gentler  parent's  super- 
abundant affection.  Did  he  tell  of  smuggler's  footsteps 
chasing  through  the  streets  as,  recovering  their  trench  of 
goods  from  where  it  was  sunk  in  the  offing,  they  were 
detected  and  followed  by  government  officials?  Did  he 
tell  of  the  ancient  castles  and  martyrs '  chapels  of  the  middle 
ages  whose  ruins  he  clambered  through,  feeding  his  imagi- 
nation with  romance?  Did  he  tell  of  the  French  Cliffs 
exciting  to  visions  across  the  channel  but  twenty -two  miles 
away?  Did  he  tell  of  his  schooling  up  to  ten  in  good 
schools,  and  of  his  going  to  Folkestone  at  ten  to  a  private 
school  where  he  was  such  an  admirable  reader  he  assisted 
the  teacher  and  thereafter  was  hired  at  times  to  read  to 
the  gentry  ?  Did  he  tell  of  Wilberf orce,  the  great  ref onner, 
who  was  pleased  with  the  boy's  ability  and  who  placed 
his  hand  on  his  head  as  if  in  prophecy?  Did  he  tell  of 
his  village  church  and  Sunday-school?  Did  he  tell  of  his 
being  accidentally  struck  on  the  head  with  a  spade  which 


JOHN   BARTHOLOMEW    GOUGII     225 

knocked  him  senseless  and  ever  after  left  him  liable  to 
concussion  of  the  brain  from  one  of  which  strokes  indeed 
he  was  to  drop  dead?  Did  he  tell  of  all  this  boyhood? 
We  know  not.  Whether  he  told  it  all  then  or  not,  we  are 
not  informed.  Certainly  later  in  the  recountal  he  did 
again  and  again,  shooting  it  through  with  his  realistic 
imagination  till  his  hearers  lived  it  all  over  with  him. 

One  thing  no  doubt  he  did  recall.  Of  that  we  are  sure. 
It  was  the  friend  of  his  boyhood. 

"Through  the  mists  of  memory  my  mother's  face 
would  often  appear ! ' ' 

That  face  never  was  out  of  his  perspective  of  the  past, 
but  stood  monumentalized  at  the  focus  of  an  avenue  of 
light  an.d  shade. 

She  was  a  woman  of  gifted  mind  so  intellectual  that  she 
was  chosen  to  teach  in  the  village  school.  Her  talents 
descended  to  her  boy,  and  to  her  under  God  he  owed  a 
grace  of  expression  that  was  later  to  cast  its  spell  over  the 
hundreds  of  thousands  in  both  hemispheres.  It  did  not 
seem  so  then.  Then  her  tears  were  chiefly  visible  as  her 
tired  fingers  made  lace  and  failed  to  sell  it  after  walks 
of  eight  miles.  The  scene  never  left  him  nor  his  gleam 
of  joy  when  at  one  time  after  a  liberal  reward  for  reading 
he  gave  a  crown-piece  into  her  despairing  hands.  To  help 
her  he  recalled  how  he  gleaned  in  the  fields  after  the  reapers 
with  his  sister,  two  years  younger,  and  with  her  trundled 
the  sheafs  home  to  winnow  in  frugal  thrift.  This  lit  up 
his  fancy's  chambers  with  a  rush  light  that  could  not  be 
put  out  even  when  other  lights  were  failing. 

"Through  the  mists  of  memory  my  mother's  face  would 
often  appear ! ' ' 

The  last  time  in  England  he  recalled  it  appearing  was 
when  as  a  boy  of  twelve  there  came  the  day  of  his  emigra- 
15 


226  MASTERMINDS 

tion  to  America,  June  4,  1829.  The  sailing-vessel  was 
becalmed  some  miles  off  Sandgate,  a  fact  his  people  noticed. 
At  first  his  father,  and  later  his  mother  rowed  out.  At 
midnight  his  mother  came  from  the  dark  shore,  though 
miles  awaj^  together  with  his  sister.  Up  from  below  came 
her  voice.  She  was  the  last  figure  he  had  seen  from  the 
shore  as  she  crouched  one-half  mile  in  advance  on  the 
stage-road  which  carried  her  son  off.  Now  again  she  was 
the  last  to  see  him,  though  it  was  midnight  and  a  long  way 
off  from  the  land.  Hailed  to  the  deck,  he  was  clasped 
in  her  ai'ms — to  let  her  go  only  when  the  wind  freshened 
and  the  anchor-flukes  were  hauled  from  the  bottom. 

In  the  time  from  1829  to  1831,  a  few  touches  of  the  life 
on  a  New  York  farm  in  America  his  memory  brushed 
aside,  until  his  leaving  for  New  York  with  fifty  cents  in  his 
pocket  to  find  Cortland  Street  under  his  feet,  and  himself 
a  boy  of  fourteen,  unl^nown  and  unbefriended.  Then 
he  managed  to  obtain  the  sum  of  two  dollars  and 
twenty-five  cents  a  week  at  the  Methodist  Book  Concern. 
As  a  book-binder  here  he  was  able  to  room  only  in  a  garret. 
By  1833  another  position  opened,  good  enough  to  allow  him 
to  send  for  his  mother  and  sister.  Hard  times  again 
brought  loss  of  Avork,  and  his  love  of  fellowship  led  to  con- 
viviality and  cheap  theatres.  Indeed  he  was  ' '  off  with  the 
crowd"  when,  while  splitting  kindling  in  an  attic  where 
she  was  preparing  to  boil  rice  for  his  supper,  his  mother 
dropped  dead!  Memory's  ineraseable  tracks  led  him  back 
where  he  plunged  into  further  dissipation  to  drown  his  sor- 
row— then  down,  down,  down,  till,  singing  his  comic  songs 
and  performing  his  tricks  of  ventriloquism  in  a  strolling 
stage  company  in  New  England  cities,  he  finally  had 
stranded  with  one  such  company  in  Worcester.  Here,  rum 
his  sole  comfort,  delirium  tremens  became  his  sole  terror, 


JOHN    BARTHOLOMEW    OOUGH    227 

and  the  bitters  that  first  gave  him  sweetness  ended  in 
giving  him  bitterness.  Parehings,  burnings,  ringings, 
dead  stillnesses,  sleeplessness,  cramps,  temporary  blindness, 
falling  sensations,  objects  about  him  wriggling  into  foul 
mouths  and  eyes — all  these  things,  till  at  last  the  delirium 
at  its  worst  burst  upon  him. 

When  he  told  this,  no  matter  be  it  this  the  first  time,  or 
thereafter  the  one  thousandth  time,  he  felt  as  if  he  were 
living  the  battle  over.  Such  impressions  had  branded  their 
way  into  the  brain-tracts  ineffaceably.  With  such 
judgments  written  there  he  had  only  to  read  the 
handwriting  on  the  wall  in  order  to  give  his  peerless  phi- 
lippic against  drink,  and  his  motto:  "Young  man,  keep 
your  record  clean." 

Ending  his  testimony  amid  the  silence  of  every  one 
in  the  room  in  the  lower  Town  Hall,  he  affixed  his  signa- 
ture to  the  pledge  and  walked  out  from  the  ovation  of 
hand-clasps,  exclaiming :  "  I  have  done  it !    I  have  done  it ! " 

Shivering  spine,  flushing  hot  waves,  and  fiendish  pleas 
to  return  to  his  cups  pressed  upon  him,  but  could  not 
induce  him  to  stake  all  again  on  a  glass. 

"I  do  agree  that  I  will  not  use  it;  and  I  must  fight  it 
out,"  he  murmured. 

Replace  a  lower  hunger  wdth  a  higher  hunger,  a  lower 
thirst  with  a  higher  thirst,  a  lower  objective  which  is 
wrong,  not  with  no  objective  in  its  place,  but  with  a 
higher  objective  which  is  right — this  we  have  said  is  the 
one  immortal  recipe  under  God  for  changing  and  keeping 
changed  a  life  given  to  perversity.  This  corollary  of 
character  the  following  incident  proves  conversely. 

Gough  went  to  his  employer  next  morning.  "I  signed 
the  pledge  last  night,"  he  said. 

"I  know  you  did,"  half-heartedly  said  the  employer. 


228  MASTER     MINDS 

"1  mean  to  keep  it."  was  Gough's  desperate  rejoinder, 

"So  they  all  say,  and  I  hope  you  will." 

"You  do  not  believe  I  will.  You  have  no  confidence  in 
me." 

' '  None  whatever ! ' ' 

Broken-hearted,  crushed  and  paralyzed.  Gough  says  in 
his  confession  that  he  returned  to  his  t-ask  undone — will- 
power gone,  mind  gone,  enough  sense  only  to  feel  suddenly 
the  small  bar  of  iron  he  held  in  his  hand  wriggle  and 
start  to  move.  He  griped  it.  It  moved  more.  He  griped 
it  harder.  Yet  it  moved  so  that  it  seemed  to  tear  the  palm 
out  of  his  hand,  so  that  he  dropped  it  but  to  see  it  before 
him  a  coiled  snake  looking  at  him  with  green  eyes  and 
spitting  tongue.  His  system  convulsed  at  the  sight  all  the 
more  because  he  had  sense  enough  left  to  know  that  it  was 
worse  than  a  snake,  that  it  was  the  phantasmagoria  of  his 
own  poisoned  mind  that  hatched  it. 

"I  cannot  fight  this  out.  Oh,  my  God.  I  shall  die!  I 
cannot  fight  it  out,"  he  sobbed. 

"We  mark  now,  as  a  proposition  proved  back  again,  how 
the  good  will  of  confidence  feeds  a  drunkard's  soul-hunger 
and  deeper  thirst  and  enables  him  to  fight  it  out. 

"Good  morning,  Mr.  Gough,"  came  a  word  of  cheer. 
"Good  morning.     I  saw  you  sign  the  pledge  last  night." 

"Yes  sir,  I  did  it." 

"I  was  verj^  glad  to  see  you  do  it,  and  many  young  men 
followed  your  example.  It  is  just  such  men  as  you  that 
we  want,  and  I  hope  you  wiU  be  the  means  of  doing  a 
great  deal  of  good.  My  oflSce  is  in  the  Exchange;  come 
in  and  see  me.  I  shall  be  happy  to  make  your  acquain- 
tance. I  have  only  a  minute  or  two  to  spare,  but  I  thought 
I  would  just  call  in  and  tell  you  to  keep  up  a  brave  heart. 
Good  bye.     God  bless  you.     Come  in  and  see  me." 


JOHN    BARTHOLOMEW    GOV  GH     229 

The  stranger  was  Jesse  W.  Goodrich,  a  Worcester  lawyer. 

"It  would  be  impossible,"  Mr.  Goiigh  has  declared,  "to 
describe  how  this  little  act  of  kindness  cheered  me.  With 
the  exception  of  Joel  Stratton  who  was  a  waiter  at  a 
temperance  hotel  and  who  had  asked  me  to  sign  the  pledge, 
no  one  had  assisted  me  for  months  in  a  manner  which 
would  lead  me  to  think  any  one  cared  for  me  or  what 
might  be  my  fate.  Now  I  was  not  altogether  alone  in  the 
world;  tliere  was  a  hope  of  my  being  rescued  from  the 
slough  of  despond,  where  I  had  so  long  been  floundering.  I 
felt  that  the  fountain  of  human  kindness  was  not  utterly 
sealed  up,  and  again  a  green  spot,  an  oasis — small  indeed, 
but  cheering — appeared  in  the  desert  of  life.  I  had  some- 
thing to  live  for.  A  new  desire  for  life  seemed  suddenly 
to  spring  up.  The  universal  boundaiy  of  human  sympathy 
included  even  my  wretched  self  in  its  cheering  circle.  All 
these  sensations  were  generated  by  a  few  kind  words  at 
the  right  time." 

"Yes,  now  I  can  fight;  and  I  did  fight  six  days  and 
six  nights — encouraged  and  helped  by  a  few  words  of 
sympathy.  He  said,  'Come  in  and  see  me' — I  will.  He 
said  he  w'ould  be  pleased  to  make  my  acquaintance;  he 
will.   He  said, 'Keep  up  a  brave  heart !' By  God 's  help  I  will." 

So  awful  was  the  fight  alone  in  the  little  garret  chamber 
which  we  have  described  as  the  place  of  the  travail  of 
Gough's  soul  that  it  took  six  days'  wrestling  there  in  tor- 
ture without  food  or  drink.  It  was  indeed  a  soul  fighting 
against  a  hell  on  earth.  The  walls  featured  gorgon  faces 
writhing  into  life;  the  floor  squirmed  with  bloated  insects 
whose  tendrils  gradually  wriggled  up  about  his  face  like 
ten  thousand  spiders.  At  the  same  time  knife-blades  con- 
torted themselves  in  his  hand  till  the  flesh  seemed  shredded. 
Yet  he  kept  himself  from  drink  and — conquered ! 


230  MASTERMINDS 

After  six  days  and  nights,  on  the  seventh  day,  sunlight 
began  the  stimulus  of  nature's  tonic  and,  the  weak  image 
of  himself,  he  tottered  out  into  the  world  of  men  to  go 
back  to  his  task  with  order  and  regularity. 

gough's  first  speeches 

The  Temperance  Circle,  whose  fore-runners,  Joel  Strat- 
ton  and  Jesse  Goodrich,  had  saved  him,  kept  about  him  and 
asked  him  to  narrate  a^ain  his  experience.  Its  narration 
was  sought  a  second  time  at  a  temperance  meeting  on  Bum- 
coat  Plain,  where  in  rags  and  tatters  he  stood  making  his 
audience  by  the  vividness  of  the  narration  of  his  battle 
forget  that  in  an  over-heated  room  he  had  clenched  all 
the  time  the  brown  overcoat  about  his  neck. 

Never  did  Luther  or  any  other  man  so  see  the  demons 
materialize  his  sin  and  dance  before  him  as  devils  to  be 
overthrown  as  did  Gough  when,  with  an  awakened  gleam 
and  fierce  gaze,  he  lived  the  crises  over  and  communicated 
what  he  felt  to  the  people  as  an  action  in  a  drama. 

Millbury  asked  him  to  tell  his  simple  tale  from  the  pul- 
pit. In  a  new  suit  of  black  he  waged  over  the  battle,  with 
a  strange  heroic  grace  and  sublime  self-forgetfulness — a 
picture  of  the  orator  to  be.  West  Boylston  found  him 
out,  and  after  that  many  Worcester  County  towns  com- 
bined to  complete  the  discovery  of  John  B.  Gough. 

At  the  end  of  the  year  1842  his  mail  was  filled  with 
invitations,  and  he  left  his  shop-work  for  a  short  time. 
But  the  laid-aside  tool  was  never  reclasped,  God  having 
put  into  his  power  against  King  Alcohol  a  greater  tool,  the 
two-edged  sword  of  truth. 

The  reaction  from  over-exertion  in  such  a  campaign  led 
from  exaltation  to  depression.  Tired  nature  recoiled.  His 
emaciated   form   was   pumped   past   the  limit   to  supply 


JOHN    BARTHOLOMEW    GOVGH     231 

blood  for  his  flood  of  eloquence,  and  it  gave  way.  Thirty 
towns  in  succession  were  upon  his  itinerary  and  his  system 
broke  under  the  strain.  The  old  head-pain  from  his  boy- 
hood's injury  with  a  spade  began  to  palpitate.  For  relax- 
ation and  a  change  he  took  the  train  for  Boston.  After 
a  play  in  a  leading  theatre  to  which  he  had  been  invited, 
he  sat  down  in  a  ginll  to  partalte  of  oysters,  the  condiment 
to  which  M^as  a  glass  of  brandy.  Without  thinking,  in  his 
abandon  of  good  fellowship,  he  drained  it  and  several  more. 

It  suddenly  flashed  over  him,  he  recounts,  that  this  was 
a  violation  of  his  vow,  a  betrayal  of  his  temperance  friends 
and  thousands  of  Worcester  County  enthusiasts  who  had 
trusted  him,  discovered  him,  drawn  him  out! 

It  spelled  ruin,  he  was  sure. 

Next  morning  he  took  the  train  for  Newburyport,  the 
opposite  way.  Returning  to  Boston  again,  he  dared  not 
go  on  to  Worcester,  and  drained  another  cup  to  get  up  his 
courage.  Saturday  he  compelled  himself  to  return,  con- 
fess all,  quit  the  town  and  the  cause  and  remove  forever 
from  Massachusetts. 

Burning  his  papers  and  appointments,  he  felt  his  me- 
teoric career  eclipsed,  and  packed  his  clothes  ready  to 
start. 

But  the  royal  group  who  first  stood  by  understood  the 
reaction.  They  forgave  him.  They  induced  him  to  re- 
sign and  fight  again.  At  a  large  meeting  called  in  Wor- 
cester Town  Hall,  Gough  stood  forth  and  proclaimed  his 
broken  vow.  When  he  threw  himself  upon  the  mercy  and 
judgment  of  the  temperance  folks  as  to  whether  he  should 
retire  from  tlie  field  or  no,  they  unanimously  voted  that  he 
should  remain. 

Deep  down  in  his  own  soul,  excusable  as  his  lapse  was, 
if  we  look  at  it  from  physical  causes,  he  knew  there  was 


232  MASTERMINDS 

a  deeper  reason.  The  first  six  months  he  had  been  en- 
thused by  his  remarkable  reception  by  Worcester  County 
audiences,  and  he  had  for  strength  relied  on  his  own  self- 
confidence  and  on  the  human  confidence  of  his  friends. 
True  as  was  this  self-confidence  and  human  confidence  to 
turn  him,  it  could  not  keep  him  turned.  It  needed  for 
this,  strength  other  than  human. 

This  is  the  lesson  he  confessed  to  the  world  as  one  dearly 
learned  and  dearly  bought. 

"When  I  signed  the  pledge,"  he  writes  in  "Sunlight 
and  Shadow,"  "I  was  an  unbeliever.  The  appeal  to  me 
was  on  the  ground  of  personal  advantage;  there  was  not 
a  thought  of  God.  My  motive  in  that  act  and  declaration 
was  a  merely  selfish  one.  In  all  my  struggle  I  had  not 
offered  a  prayer.  I  said  during  the  struggle,  '0  God,  I 
shall  die. '  I  heedlessly  used  a  term.  I  fought  that  battle 
alone  for  six  days.  I  continued  for  five  months  an  ab- 
stainer from  drink.  I  entered  the  field  as  a  lecturer,  self- 
reliant  and  boastful.  Then  I  fell.  It  was  after  that  lapse 
I  cried  out — 

"  'Oh,  my  Father,  may  Thy  hand  support  me  and  my 
prayer  ever  be,  hold  Thou  me  up  and  I  shall  be  safe. '  ' ' 


gough's  temperance  plea  wins  national  fame 

Other  counties  than  Worcester,  other  states  than  Mas- 
sachusetts, now  called  to  the  pleading  of  the  new  voice. 

The  first  year  in  three  hundred  and  sixty-five  days  he 
gave  three  hundred  and  sixty-five  addresses,  for  which  he 
received  but  one  hundred  and  five  dollars  and  ninety  cents 
in  all,  out  of  which  he  paid  his  expenses.  The  sums  paid 
him  ranged  from  six  dollars  to  seventy-five  cents.     But  in 


JOHN    BARTnOLOMEW    GOVGU     233 

this  short  time  he  obtained  fifteen  thousand  two  hun- 
dred and  eighteen  names  of  those  who  swore  to  stop 
drinking ! 

In  1843  Boston  called  for  his  services,  a  call  he  much 
feared,  as  he  had  spoken  almost  altogether  in  towns. 
This  was  the  first  of  three  hundred  and  twenty-one  public 
lectures  in  Boston  besides  talks  to  children.  At  his 
second  November  engagement  the  mammoth  auditorium  of 
the  Odeon  became  packed  to  overflowing. 

The  Washingtonian  wave  for  temperance,  on  whose  crest 
he  rode,  included  not  merely  the  masses,  but  the  leaders  of 
the  land — men  like  N.  P.  Banks,  Franklin  Pierce,  the 
Beechers,  and  almost  every  reformer  of  the  day. 

November  23,  1843,  occurred  the  marriage  of  Mr.  Gough 
to  Mary  Whitcomb,  whom  he  took  from  the  homestead  of 
Captain  Stephen  Flagg  of  Boylston,  a  homestead  a  por- 
tion of  which  in  later  years  he  reclaimed  as  his  estate 
and  over  which  he  made  his  wife  the  happy  head.  But  at 
the  time  of  the  marriage  three  dollars  and  fifty  cents  was 
all  that  he  owned  after  he  had  paid  his  marriage  fee  to  a 
Worcester  minister.  All  he  could  take  his  bride  to  then 
was  one  room  in  Roxbury  and  a  boarding-house  table. 

By  May,  1844,  Gough 's  fame  spread  down  the  coast  to 
New  York,  Philadelphia,  Baltimore  and  Washington,  to 
which  places  he  was  soon  after  called  to  lecture.  Even 
now,  however,  in  his  platform  mastery  of  an  audience,  he 
had  to  make  his  way  anew,  as  the  audience  in  New  York 
began  to  go  out  when  he  started  to  speak.  In  Philadelphia 
they  decreased  to  but  occasional  liandfuls.  Speaking  from 
a  Presbyterian  pulpit,  even  on  Sunday  he  received  little 
enthusiasm  and  no  thanks.  This,  however,  was  but  the 
ice-breaking  to  a  later  acquaintance  of  unbounded  enthu- 
siasm and  success. 


234  MASTER    MINDS 

But  back  in  Worcester  County  and  New  England, 
amongst  the  peoples  that  discovered  him,  he  found  the 
response  to  his  genius  that  always  as  in  the  first  days  drew 
him  out  of  himself  into  his  best. 

A  temperance  jubilee  in  Boston  May  30,  1844,  celebrated 
this  temperance  revolution — a  kind  of  revolution  which 
Abraham  Lincoln  declared  was  the  greatest  this  country 
could  ever  have.  The  city  was  in  regalia,  radiating  ban- 
ners of  every  hue,  and  celebrant  with  jubilant  outbursts. 
Every  county  sent  its  quota.  A  children's  crusade  fol- 
lowed the  procession.  The  old  Common  swayed  with  bunt- 
ing, with  which  the  State  House  was  afloat.  The  climax 
of  the  day  lay  in  the  speeches  by  the  Governor,  Mr.  Gough 
and  others  in  Tremont  Temple,  overflowing  to  the  doors 
as  it  was  with  the  populace. 

Such  a  wave  of  enthusiasm  sent  the  name  of 
Gough  far  away.  He  was  called  back  to  New  York,  which 
again  claimed  him — not  half-heartedly  this  time,  but  with 
fervent  acclaim  as  the  peerless  Apostle  of  Temperance  and 
the  voice  of  the  whole  movement.  In  these  addresses  he 
won  the  gi*eat  metropolis  of  America  and  proceeded  back 
to  Boston  to  find  Faneuil  Hall  packed  to  the  doors  and  win- 
dows to  hear  him. 

At  the  end  of  1844,  best  of  all  to  welcome  him  was  the 
growing  army  of  human  faces  of  men  who  had  taken  the 
pledge  and  kept  it  and  who  in  a  triumphant  host  greeted 
the  reformer  in  ever  increasing  numbers. 

Next,  Philadelphia  withdrew  the  cold  shoulder,  and  the 
beginning  of  the  year  found  Gough  opening  a  great  cam- 
paign in  Pennsylvania.  It  was  not  a  movement  of  mere 
emotion.  Medical  colleges  sent  their  students  in  flocks 
to  hear  him,  and  colleges  closed  their  recitations  to  have 
him  touch  their  youth  with  his  fire.     New  Jersey's  Legis- 


JOHN    BARTHOLOMEW    GOUGII     235 

latiire  opened  its  doors,  and  so  did  New  York's.  Prisons 
and  penitentiaries  he  equally  overcame  by  the  spell  of  his 
sway. 

In  advance  of  the  Washingtonian  idea,  splendid  as  it 
was  in  its  moral  suasion  over  the  individual,  Mr.  Gough 
advocated  legal  movement  against  the  saloon  as  the  fortress 
of  King  Alcohol.  So  potent  was  his  contention  against 
them  that  traps  by  liquor  sympathizers  were  set  on  more 
than  one  occasion  to  defeat  and  snare  him. 

Slanders,  threats,  and  even  hints  at  assassination,  accu- 
mulated. The  most  notorious  trap  was  partially  success- 
ful. 

It  was  laid  in  New  York  in  September,  1845. 

Playing  upon  his  well-known  aversion  to  priggishness, 
especially  before  the  laborer  or  poor  man,  who  might 
expect  him  on  accoimt  of  his  risen  estate  to  show  his 
superiority,  a  man  accosted  him  in  New  York  city  on 
Broadway. 

* '  I  used  to  work  in  the  same  shop  with  you  in  this  city. 
I  suppose  you  are  pious  now  and  have  got  to  be  so  proud 
that  you  would  not  drink  a  glass  of  soda  with  an  old 
shopmate. ' ' 

"Oh,  yes;  I'll  drink  a  glass  of  soda  with  anybody;  I'll 
drink  a  glass  with  you  if  you  will  go  in  here,"  said  Mr. 
Gough,  pointing  to  the  celebrated  Thompson  Fountain. 

' '  We  shall  never  get  served  there.  I  know  a  place  where 
we  can  get  better  soda  than  we  can  here. ' ' 

Down  Chambers  Street  to  Chatham  they  proceeded  to  a 
small  shop,  to  which  Mr.  Gough,  taunted  by  the  man's 
reference  to  his  being  too  proud  to  drink  a  cup  of  soda 
with  a  workingman,  innocently  went. 

Calling  for  soda  with  raspberry  syrup,  with  his  hand  over 
the  brim  the   supposed  laborer  passed   Gough  his  glass. 


236  MASTERMINDS 

Drinking  it  unsuspectingly  for  soda,  he  perceived  when  he 
reached  Broadway  he  had  been  drugged!  It  went  to  his 
brain,  and  half-consciously  taking  the  relief  of  a  draught 
of  brandy  some  one  passed  him  in  a  grocery  store,  he 
wandered  about  the  streets  till  dark.  Accosted  by  a 
woman  who  offered  to  take  him  home,  he  wearily  was  led 
like  a  half -asleep  child.  In  his  stupor  he  was  given  fur- 
ther drink.  At  last,  after  he  was  there  in  this  place  over 
Saturday,  his  friends  were  notified,  and  the  fact  that  he  was 
found  there  in  a  questionable  place  published  abroad,  the 
very  thing  desired  by  the  conspirators. 

' '  Oh,  take  me  away  from  this, ' '  was  the  moan  with  which 
he  met  several  distinguished  gentlemen  of  Brooklyn,  who 
so  absolutely  believed  in  his  integrity  and  on  his  being  the 
dupe  of  a  trap  that  they  took  him  to  their  own  homes. 

The  celebrated  Mount  Vernon  Congregational  Church 
of  Boston,  headed  by  Dr.  Kirk,  its  pastor,  verified  the  above 
steps  of  Cough's  own  account,  exonerating  him  from  all 
censure. 

Rev.  Theodore  Cuyler,  Mr.  George  Ripley  of  Brooklyn, 
with  the  best  of  the  press  and  pulpit  everyw^here,  expressed 
their  faith  in  Mr.  Cough  and  their  pity  for  him  as  the 
victim  of  a  nefarious  plot. 

A  flood  of  lecture  calls  demonstrated  the  people's  faith, 
and  commencing  at  Boston  he  began  a  triumphant  tour 
extending  into  New  York,  Brooklyn,  Philadelphia  and 
Princeton;  thence  south  to  Baltimore,  Washington,  Rich- 
mond and  other  Southern  cities,  to  which  he  was  recalled  in 
June,  so  intense  was  the  impression  awakened  by  the  cam- 
paign. At  all  these  meetings  the  pledge  was  the  focal  part 
and  specific  issue,  thousands  upon  thousands  signing  their 
names.  Cold-water  armies,  followed  by  crusades  of  chil- 
dren, everywhere  enrolled  their  enlistments. 


JOHN   BARTHOLOMEW    GOUGH    237 

Every  public  speaker  is  criticisable  for  his  human  im- 
perfections which  men  in  private  life  have  equally,  or  more, 
yet  hide  behind  the  coward's  castle  of  privacy. 

The  defects  of  his  qualities  Gough's  enemies  harped 
upon,  styling  him  at  different  times  "humbug,"  "theatri- 
cal performer,"  "mountebank,"  "clown,"  "buffoon," 
"ungraceful,"  "homely,"  "round-shouldered,"  "crooked- 
legs,"  "hypocrite,"  "mercenary  scoundrel,"  "consummate 
villain,"  "base  slanderer,"  "liar,"  "dnmkard,"  "wear- 
ing long  hair,"  "wearing  jewelry,"  "sensual  mouth,"  with 
"idiotic  ravings,"  "a  rehash  of  other  people's  thoughts," 
"balderdash"  and  "insane  bellowings. " 

Such  things  are  but  the  reverse  side  of  the  impressions 
which  formed  the  positive  face  of  other  men's  convictions, 
and  they  merely  added  to  his  fame,  a  fame  unsurpassed 
by  any  great  American  orator.  The  greatest  of  these  them- 
selves admitted  this.  Henry  "Ward  Beecher  once  exclaimed, 
"I  never  was  intoxicated  but  once.  That  was  when  I 
heard  John  B.  Gough." 

In  August,  1847,  he  crossed  the  line  into  Canada,  getting 
a  first  taste  of  the  English  spirit  which  later  fanned  the 
British  homeland  into  flame. 

In  Faneuil  Hall,  Boston,  occurred  a  riot  on  October 
21st,  incited  by  two  hundred  thugs  and  topers.  First 
hurling  abuse,  then  joining  hands,  they  advanced  upon  the 
platform  to  seize  Gough.  The  temperance  men  gathered 
around  the  orator  and  finally  seamen  from  the  receiving 
ship  Ohio  ejected  the  leaders  of  the  attack.  Further  lec- 
tures proceeded  in  the  hall,  where  Gough's  tongue  of  fire 
captivated  assembly  after  assembly. 

Though  not  at  all  suffering  stage-fright  at  such  a  time, 
at  others  Gough  was  sorely  afflicted  with  it. 


238  MASTER     MINDS 

Before  his  one  hundred  and  sixty-first  lecture  in  Boston, 
he  paced  the  street  without,  unable  to  force  himself  within. 
The  hour  was  up,  the  entrances  crowded.  At  the  last 
moment  he  gained  courage  to  press  his  way  in,  but  was 
refused  admittance. 

"I  wish  you  would  keep  me  out,"  he  replied  to  the  door- 
keeper. 

"Ah,  Mr.  Gough,  is  that  you? — Make  way  there!" 

"I  haven't  a  thought.  I  can  say  notliing  to-night,"  he 
confessed  to  the  chairman. 

"Ladies  and  Gentlemen:  I  have  nothing  to  say,"  he  con- 
fessed to  the  people  as  he  stood  up.  "I  almost  wish  I 
could  feel  as  a  gentleman  in  New  York  told  the  people  he 
felt  when  he  addressed  them.  'I  am  never  afraid  of  an 
audience.  I  imagine  the  people  are  so  many  cabbage 
heads.'     I  wish  I  could  feel  so." 

Then  struck  by  a  counter  thought,  he  exclaimed : 

* '  No,  I  do  not  wish  that.  When  I  look  into  your  faces — 
an  assemblage  of  rational  and  immortal  beings,  and  re- 
member how  drink  has  debased  and  dragged  down  the 
loftiest  and  noblest  minds — I  cannot  feel  so;  I  thank  God 
I  cannot  feel  so." 

Then  through  the  flood-gates  opened  up  by  this  counter- 
suggestion,  flowed  an  hour  and  a  half  of  convincing  elo- 
quence. 

It  was  an  unconscious  secret  of  Gough's  hold  of  an 
audience  that  he  so  agreeably  disappointed  them  at  first. 
His  first  appearance  was  like  Lincoln's,  ungainly  and  un- 
prepossessing. 

"I  hope,"  said  one  chairman  in  introducing  him,  "he'll 
prove  far  better  than  he  looks  to  be" — a  thing  which  he 
invariably  did. 


JOHN    BARTHOLOMEW    GOUGH    239 

Five  miles  from  Worcester  and  a  mile  and  a  half  from 
Boylston  lay  the  slope  of  rolling  farm-lands  belonging  to 
the  Flagg  family.  As  a  place  of  relief  from  human  wear 
and  tear,  so  impressed  was  the  weary  lecturer  with  the 
overlook  of  the  hillside  farm  from  which  he  took  his  wife 
that,  as  he  stood  on  its  uplands  with  Mr.  Stephen  Flagg  on 
a  bright  morning  in  May,  he  declared : 

* '  What  a  fine  site  for  a  house ! ' ' 

At  once  acting  upon  the  inspiration  of  the  moment, 
he  had  twenty-six  acres  conveyed  to  his  hands.  Here  he 
planted  the  stately  cedars  that  now  mark  it  as  an  ideal 
rural  retreat,  well  hid  from  the  road,  yet  overtopping  the 
peaks  of  surrounding  trees  and  commanding  the  gentle 
slopes  for  miles  beyond. 

In  1848-50  his  lectures  went  on  over  the  entire  country, 
casting  their  spell  over  a  wider  and  wider  field.  There 
came  lists  of  applications  he  could  not  possibly  fill. 
Pledges  to  the  number  of  one  hundred  and  fifty  thousand 
were  signed.  In  Cincinnati  alone  there  were  seven  thou- 
sand six  hundred  and  forty-nine,  in  Detroit  two  thousand 
four  hundred  and  forty-six,  and  in  1851  at  Buffalo  after 
one  engagement  five  thousand  and  eighty-two.  Literary 
men  and  Congressmen  at  Washington  whose  streets  had 
been  lined  w^th  saloons  and  bars  came  alike  under  the 
magic  of  his  convictions. 

* '  The  farther  they  fall  the  deeper  they  go, ' '  was  Gough  's 
verdict,  as  he  made  no  exception  to  the  rich  and  respectable 
drunkards,  but  even  blamed  them  more.  ''No  respecter 
of  persons,"  he  allowed  no  class  distinctions,  but  man- 
fully made  his  plea  to  all  men  equally. 

In  himself,  showing  what  wonderful  changes  were  pos- 
sible, Gough  impersonated  what  he  said,  and  as  a  violent 
man  took  the  kingdom  by  force.     At  times  he  would  end 


240  MASTER     MINDS 

his  lecture  to  find  blood  upon  his  hands  which  he  had 
clinched  and  driven  unconsciously  against  near  objects 
so  that  he  broke  the  skin  and  tore  the  flesh  in  his  re-enacted 
fight  with  the  devil  of  drink. 

"I  have  said  and  I  believe,"  he  declared,  "that  when 
a  man  is  thoroughly  absorbed  in  his  theme — when  his  sub- 
ject fills  him — he  will  so  far  forget  all  and  everything  in 
his  intense  desire  to  make  his  audience  feel  as  he  wishes 
them  to  feel  that  physical  suffering  will  not  only  be  en- 
dured and  triumphed  over,  but  he  may  become  uncon- 
scious of  pain  in  the  overwhelming  power  of  his  subject  on 
himself.  I  know  that  on  the  subject  of  temperance  I  feel 
what  I  say.  I  know  it.  I  miist  feel  on  this  theme  deeply. 
No  lapse  of  time  can  weaken  the  intensity  of  my  feeling. 
Burned  into  my  memory  are  the  years  of  suffering  and 
degradation,  and  I  do  feel  deeply  and  must  ever  on  this 
great  question.  Sometimes  when  speaking  on  temperance, 
I  seem  to  be  absolutely  engaged  in  a  battle,  the  enemy 
before  me — ^not  as  a  man  of  straw,  but  the  real  living  hor- 
ror; and  in  the  wrestling  with  that,  face  to  face,  hand  to 
hand,  again,  I  have  forgotten  audiences  and  circumstances, 
sickness  and  pain  under  the  power  of  this  reality. ' ' 


GOUGH  S  VICTORY  IN  ENGLAND 

In  the  summer  of  1853  he  began  a  victorious  and  sweep- 
ing campaign  in  England.  It  was  not  merely  a  popular 
ovation,  but  a  revolution  of  sentiment  that  stirred  the  whole 
empire  from  aristocrat  to  commoner.  The  impression  was 
that  of  "a  great  original,  a  genius,  and  no  servile 
copy." 

His  first  fear  was  that  the  English  and  Scotch  would 
demand  the  academic  and  scholastic  in  place  of  his  own 


JOHN    BARTHOLOMEW    GOUGH     241 

self -realized  utterance.  He  forgot  that  the  truly  cultured 
discern  and  discover  and  welcome  the  original  genius  in 
distinction  from  the  scholjistic,  with  whose  plethora  they 
are  surfeited.  He  forgot  Lowell's  saying  that  he  who 
speaks  with  the  full  force  of  unconscious  sincerity  says  that 
which  is  at  once  ideal  and  universal.  Therefore,  because 
he  mistrusted  his  English  reception  he  borrowed  two  hun- 
dred and  fifty  dollars  to  pay  his  fare  back  in  case  of  the 
anticipated  failure. 

"John,  my  son,  don't  fear,"  said  Lyman  Beecher,  grip- 
ping his  hand,  * '  Go,  and  in  God 's  name  talk  to  the  people. ' ' 

His  appearance  on  the  platform  was  but  a  foil  for  the 
unsheathed  sword  that  suddenly  gleamed  forth  before  the 
astonished  assemblage  piercing  to  the  thoughts  and  intents 
of  the  heart. 

Exeter  Hall,  London's  great  auditorium,  full  to  the  doors 
with  Englishmen,  fell  under  the  spell  of  his  power.  "As 
he  willed,"  the  London  Weekly  News  recounted,  "it  was 
moved  to  laughter  or  melted  to  tears." 

England,  trained  for  centuries  to  detect  sham  and  to  dis- 
cover reality,  surpassed  America  in  acclaiming  the  virtue 
of  his  voice,  which  was  but  a  replica  of  his  acts.  England 
discerned  it  was  not  fine  words,  but  life,  flesh  and  blood  in 
drama,  tragedy,  comedy. 

So  the  verdict  of  England's  people  was,  "No  servile 
copy,  but  a  real  original."  While  he  held  his  audiences 
two  hours  by  his  tongue  of  fire,  the  British  Press  said  he 
could  have  held  them  till  midnight.  He  was  at  this,  the 
zenith  of  his  international  fame,  but  thirty-seven  years  old, 
and  had  been  but  twelve  years  on  the  platform  since  his 
first  discovery  in  the  hills  of  Worcester. 

Nothing  was  too  good  for  this  new  knight  errant  in  the 
list  of  the  liquor  tourney.  For  liquor  voices  England 's  foe 
16 


242  MASTERMINDS 

— its  worst  foe — which  had  entrenched  itself  in  the  very 
nerves  and  corpuscles  of  her  life  and  the  best  in  England 
felt  they  had  in  him  a  master  and  a  victor. 

Distinguished  leaders  in  England  celebrated  at  Sand- 
gate  his  thirty-seventh  birthday,  which  Mr.  Gough  com- 
memorated on  the  spot  of  his  birth. 

At  Sandgate  the  townsmen  -iinhitched  the  horses  from  the 
carriage  and  drew  the  former  village  boy  back  to  his  home 
with  their  own  hands!  Gough  always  suffered  from 
modesty  and  hated  being  lionized.  At  this  time  he  pro- 
tested, saying  constantly  under  his  breath:  "I  don't  like 
it.     I  don't  like  it." 

The  Earl  of  Shaftesbury,  introducing  him  at  Old  Drury 
Lane  in  1854,  voices  the  best  sentiment  of  Britain  when  he 
said  that  the  value  of  Gough 's  labors  "could  not  be  over- 
rated, but  v\^ere  above  all  praise." 

English  critical  judgment,  the  keenest  tempered  and  lev- 
elest  in  the  world,  appraised  him  thus  through  the  pen  of 
the  celebrated  Dr.  Campbell: 

' '  The  voice  of  Mr.  Gough, ' '  whom  the  critic  described  as 
appearing  humbly  like  a  person  who  had  still  to  learn 
that  he  was  somebody,  ''unites  to  carry  on  the  deception.  At 
the  outset  it  is  merely  strong  and  deep,  but  it  gives  no  sign 
of  the  inherent  flexibility  and  astonishing  resources  both 
of  power  and  pathos.  It  is  in  perfect  keeping  with  the 
entire  outer  man  which  at  ease  seems  to  draw  itself  up  to 
the  smallest  possible  dimensions,  but  when  fired  becomes 
erect,  expanding  in  magnitude  and  stature  so  as  to  present 
another  and  entirely  new  man.  Mr.  Gough  is  a  well- 
adjusted  mixture  of  the  poet,  orator  and  dramatist.  Ora- 
torically  he  is  never  at  fault.  There  is  nothing  false.  All 
is  truth.  The  result  is  undeviating  pleasure  and  irresist- 
ible truth." 


JOHN    BARTHOLOMEW    GOUGH    243 

The  Lord  Provost  of  Edinburgh,  Duncan  McLaren, 
headed  Scotch  enthusiasm  with  an  equal  reception. 

So  prolonged  was  the  reception  that  Gough  was  called 
into  every  part  of  the  United  Kingdom,  which  refused 
to  let  him  go,  and  what  he  thought  would  be  an  uncer- 
tain stay  of  two  months,  by  1854  lengthened  out  to  two 
years. 

Cruikshank,  the  artist;  Newman  Hall,  John  Bright,  and 
other  men  who  incarnated  English  genius,  formed  his  in- 
nermost circle  of  friends  and  supporters,  often  even  travel- 
ing with  him  on  his  remarkable  tours.  Upon  these  tours  lec- 
tures were  demanded  not  only  singly,  but  in  series  of  twelve 
and  thirteen,  in  places  where  he  frequently  had  to  stay 
five  weeks  at  a  time. 

He  conquered  Oxford,  passing  through  the  ordeal  of 
rapid-fire  jokes  with  which  they  try  out  their  speakers.  He 
brought  the  banter  to  an  end  by  proposing  they  select  a 
champion  to  contest  the  theme  with  him  in  a  bout  of  ten 
minutes  each.  They  could  not  present  a  man.  Thus  floor- 
ing them,  Gough  came  out  at  the  end  victor,  master  of  the 
situation  and  beloved  by  his  hearers,  who  invited  him  again 
to  speak  the  next  day,  and  gave  their  undivided  attention 
and  allegiance. 

Public  sentiment  as  to  drink,  the  great  foe  of  the  Eng- 
lish race,  Gough  visibly  and  sensibly  affected  even  in  a 
people  where  he  had  to  cut  prejudice  against  the  grain. 
Whether  the  effect  was  upon  the  thousands  of  outcasts  and 
the  wrecks  of  men  and  women,  or  upon  the  flower  of  Eng- 
lish society  at  such  centres  as  Hartwell  House,  the  result  on 
the  English  mind  was  the  same — a  great  upheaval  of  hearts. 
This  was  the  result  of  his  four  hundred  and  thirty-eight 
lectures  and  his  tour  of  twenty-three  thousand  two  hun- 
dred and  twenty-four  English  miles. 


244  MASTER     MINDS 

Home  to  America  in  August,  1855,  calls  for  Gough's 
speeches  came  from  as  far  as  the  new  West. 

Yet  Gough  the  man  was  never  spoiled  because  he  had 
become  Gough  the  publicist  and  the  international  oracle  of 
temperance.  He  loved  nothing  so  much  as  the  domestic 
peace  of  Hillside,  his  Worcester  County  home  on  the  hills. 
At  the  little  Boylston  Church  he  kept  his  touch  with  the 
higher  efforts  of  the  soul,  where  he  not  only  rested,  but 
strove,  teaching  in  the  Sunday-school  and  starting  a  great 
rural  revival. 

In  April,  1857,  after  farewell  ovations  in  the  great  cities, 
he  began  a  second  English  tour. 

Moral  suasion  had  become  so  much  the  habit  of  Mr. 
Gough  that  he  perhaps  failed  to  appreciate  the  political 
power  of  prohibition  as  championed  by  Neal  Dow  of  Maine. 
In  general  the  effect  of  such  prohibition  up  to  that  time  he 
called,  compared  with  moral  suasion,  "a  dead  letter." 
Among  those  who  were  reformers  only  according  to  the 
letter  of  the  law,  this  stirred  up  a  hornets'  nest,  and  operat- 
ing in  England,  caused  jealous  enemies  to  rise  up  to  try  to 
undo  him.  To  silence  these  writers  who  sought  as  with  a 
muck-rake  to  drag  up  the  past  as  a  means  of  turning  pub- 
lic sentiment  against  him,  he  laid  their  statements  before  a 
court  of  equity.  Governors  of  the  United  States,  college 
presidents,  Henry  Ward  Beecher.  Lyman  Beecher,  mem- 
bers of  Congress  and  leaders  throughout  America  sent 
memorials  to  England  proving  the  falsifiers'  claims  untrue. 
But  led  by  Dr.  F.  R.  Lees  the  tide  of  slander  went  on 
till  June  2d,  1858,  the  Court  of  Exchequer,  Westminster, 
brought  the  case  to  its  conclusion  and  the  verdict  was  ren- 
dered in  Gough's  favor  and  retraction  demanded  from  Lees. 

During  these  three  years  until  August,  1860,  the  back- 
fire   only   intensified    Gough's    supporters,   under  whose 


"\ovsG  Man,  Kkep  Youk  Rkcoi:d  Clean!" 
(P'rom  the  oriKiiinl  piiinting  of  John  B.  (iough  on  the  public  platform, 
in  Mechanics  Hall,  Worcester) 


JOHN    BARTHOLOMEW    GOUGE     245 

auspices  he  delivered  six  hundred  and  five  lectures,  travel- 
ing forty  thousand  two  hundred  and  seventeen  miles,  where 
five  hundred  thousand  hearers  heard  hira  and  twelve  thou- 
sand signed  pledge-cards.  In  liistoric  Exeter  Hall  alone 
he  delivered  ninety-five  addresses. 

* '  Thousands  upon  thousands  in  Britain  bless  him  for  his 
work's  sake,"  was  the  press  conclusion  of  a  notable  organ. 
"Mr.  Gough  will  ever  be  esteemed  one  of  the  most  eminent 
trophies  of  the  return  to  that  higher  standard  of  nature's 
eloquence. ' ' 

"young  man,  keep  your  record  clean!" 

In  America  from  May  14th,  1843  (a  time  before  his  Eng- 
lish tour),  till  June,  1869,  he  delivered  six  thousand  sixty- 
four  public  addresses  and  traveled  two  hundred  seventy-two 
thousand  two  hundred  and  thirty-five  miles.  Even  by  1853 
he  had  obtained  two  hundred  fifteen  thousand  one  hundred 
and  seventy-nine  pledges,  the  results  of  which  in  reborn 
men,  happy  wives  and  saved  children,  no  one  can  accu- 
rately computate. 

"Young  man,  keep  your  record  clean!"  This  was  his 
last  injunction  to  mankind. 

February  15,  1886,  at  Frankford,  near  Philadelphia, 
Pennsylvania,  he  had  spoken  twenty  minutes  to  a  packed 
audience  when,  uttering  these  burning  words  which  seemed 
to  focus  the  light  of  his  whole  life,  he  lifted  his  hand  to  a 
pain  back  of  his  scarred  forehead,  and  fell  backward, 
stricken  with  apoplexy.  Three  days  later,  aged  sixty-nine, 
he  died. 

A  faded  handkerchief  spotted  with  a  woman's  tears  was 
the  most  signal  emblem  his  wife  placed  as  the  badge  of 
mourning  upon    his    casket    at    the    funeral  service    in 


246  MASTER     MINDS 

Boylston,  It  bespoke  louder  than  anything  else  the  speak- 
ing silence  of  thousands  upon  thousands  of  regenerated 
homes. 

Decades  before,  in  England,  the  faded  handkerchief  had 
come  to  Mrs.  Gough  with  these  words: 

"I  am  very  poor.  I  married  with  fairest  prospects.  But 
my  husband  took  to  drinking,  and  everything  went  until  at 
last  I  found  myself  in  one  miserable  room.  My  husband 
lay  drunk  in  the  corner  and  my  sick  child  lay  moaning  on 
my  knee.  I  wet  this  handkerchief^  with  my  tears.  My 
husband  met  yours.  He  spoke  a  few  words  and  gave  a 
grasp  of  the  hand,  and  now  for  six  years  my  husband  has 
been  to  me  all  that  a  husband  can  be  to  a  wife.  I  have 
brought  your  husband  the  very  handkerchief  I  wet  that 
night  with  my  tears,  and  I  want  him  to  remember  that  he 
has  wiped  away  those  tears  from  my  eyes. ' ' 


iTbis  pathetic  memento,  with  many  another,  lies  in  a  collection 
at  the  house  of  John  B.  Gough 's  niece,  Mrs.  Charles  G.  Eeed  of 
Worcester.  Here  is  the  little  Bible,  the  gift  of  his  mother,  inscribed 
by  her  hand,  lying  strangely  enough  side  by  side  with  the  illuminated 
vellum  greetings  signed  on  his  victorious  return  years  later  by 
England's  peers,  church  canons  and  reformers.  Here  by  the  score 
are  Cruikshank's  original  drawings,  of  which  Gough,  Cruikshank's 
bosom  friend,  made  a  complete  collection  from  the  artist's  first 
hand  work.  Original  copies  of  Gough 's  lectures,  illustrating  the 
way  he  prepared  them,  also  lie  in  this  collection,  with  their  care- 
fully penned  words,  each  letter  a  half  inch  in  size,  so  that  the 
lecturer  if  using  manuscript  could  see  it  easily. 


Senatoii  (ir.or.i.i:  Fnismic  IIciar 

Tn  Later  Life  and  Karly  Manhood 

(The  corner  vignette  is  from  a  rare,  imprinted  dafruer- 

reotype  in  the  possession  of  liis  iianf,'literi 


GEORGE  FRISBIE  HOAR 

AN   AMERICAN  IDEAL   STATESMAN 

THE  family  tree  of  George  Frisbie  Hoar,  from  whicli 
he  sprang  August  29th,  1826,  is  most  interesting 
and  distinguished.  Its  branches  have  sheltered 
many  of  the  greatest  movements  of  our  time  and  of  past 
times.  Its  roots  started  with  our  history.  But  that  was 
not  his  career.  He  began  as  any  other  man  begins  when 
he  took  root  for  himself  in  his  own  place  and  in  his  own 
way.  His  autobiography  began  when  he  came  to  himself. 
"There  is,"  he  once  said,  "once  in  a  while,  though  the 
quality  is  rare,  an  historian  or  an  author,  a  writer  of  fiction, 
or  a  preacher  or  a  pastor,  or  an  orator,  or  a  poet,  or  an 
influential  or  beloved  citizen,  who  in  everything  he  says  or 
does  seems  to  be  sending  a  personal  message  from  himself. 
The  message  is  inspired  and  tinctured  and  charged  and 
made  electric  with  the  quality  of  the  individual  soul.  We 
know  where  it  comes  from.  No  mask,  no  shrinking  modesty 
can  hide  the  individual.  Every  man  knows  from  whom  it 
comes  and  hails  it  as  a  special  message  to  himself.  We  say 
that  is  from  my  friend  to  me !  The  message  may  be  read 
by  a  million  eyes  and  reach  a  million  souls.  But  every 
one  deems  it  private  and  confidential  to  him. ' ' 

In  this  very  way  George  Frisbie  Hoar  comes  to  us 
because  he  at  first  came  to  Jmnself  and  at  last  gave  himself. 
Had  he  not  come  to  himself,  all  the  ancestors  in  the  world 
would  have  made  nothing  but  a  bright  background  for  his 
dismal  failure.  It  is  because  he  came  to  himself  that  he 
gets  a  hold  of  ourselves. 


248  MASTER     MINDS 

He  came  to  himself  as  a  student  of  truth,  as  a  statesman, 
and  as  a  ripened  soul. 

AS  A  STUDENT  OP  TRUTH 

He  entered  Harvard  when  sixteen  years  old,  in  the  year 
1842,  after  preparation  in  Concord  and  under  the  famous 
preceptress,  Sarah  Ripley.  As  a  student  he  confessed  him- 
self a  time-killer,  a  lounger  and  an  idler. 

"President  Eliot,"  he  remarked,  speaking  of  his  life  as  a 
boy,  ' '  said  he  had  a  great  respect  for  his  little  self.  I  can 
not  say  that  of  my  young  self  at  Harvard.  My  time  was 
largely  wasted  in  novel-reading,  or  reading  books  which 
had  not  much  to  do  with  the  college  studies,  and  lounging 
about  my  rooms  or  that  of  the  other  students. ' ' 

"Old  Dr.  Bartlett,  who  always  uttered  what  was  in  his 
heart,  said  that  after  my  two  oldest  brothers  and  I  had 
grown  up,  Samuel  Hoar's  boys  used  to  be  the  three  biggest 
rascals  in  Concord. ' ' 

But  the  mischievous  lad  and  student  loafer  came  to  him- 
self, underwent  a  great  reaction  and  witnessed  this  counter 
confession : 

"When  I  graduated,  I  looked  back  on  my  wasted  four 
years  with  a  good  deal  of  chagrin  and  remorse.  I  think  I 
can  fairly  say  that  I  have  had  few  idle  moments  since.  I 
have  probably  put  as  much  hard  work  into  life  as  most  men 
on  this  continent — certainly  I  have  put  into  it  all  the  work 
that  my  physical  powers,  especially  my  eyes,  would  permit. 
I  studied  law  in  Concord  the  first  year  after  graduation. 
I  used  to  get  up  at  six  o'clock  in  the  morning,  go  to  the 
office,  make  a  fire,  and  read  law  till  breakfast-time.  Then  I 
went  home  to  breakfast  and  got  back  in  about  three  quar- 
ters of  an  hour,  and  spent  the  forenoon  until  one  diligently 
reading  law.     After  dinner,  at  two  o'clock,  I  read  history 


GEOROE    F  RISE  IE    HOAR  249 

until  four.  I  spent  the  next  two  hours  in  walking  alone  in 
the  woods  and  roads.  At  seven  I  read  a  little  geometry 
and  algebra,  reviewing  the  slender  mathematics  which  I 
had  studied  in  college,  and  then  spent  two  hours  in  reading 
Greek.  I  read  through  Thueydides,  Homer,  and  Xeno- 
phon  's  Hellenica,  and  some  other  Greek  books  in  that  year. ' ' 

On  Sunday  his  programme  began  with  that  observance 
of  the  Sabbath  which  he  maintained  weekly  and  for  the 
protection  of  which  he  later  headed  the  Sabbath  Protective 
League.^ 

"I  have  no  remorse  for  wasted  hours  during  those  two 
years  in  Concord, ' '  he  concluded. 

By  this  act,  the  assertion  of  a  richly  endowed  but  idle 
will,  and  the  putting  of  it  to  work  on  his  own  responsibility, 
George  Frisbie  Hoar  came  to  the  psychological  moment  of 
his  life.  By  this  moral  act  he  unlocked  the  latent  layers 
of  his  soul  which  otherwise  would  have  slept  uselessly  on. 


iFor  eight  years  previous  to  his  death  Senator  Hoar  was  Pres- 
ident of  the  Sabbath  Protective  League,  and  he  thus  expressed  himself: 
* '  There  is  in  my  judgment  no  more  commanding  public  duty  than 
attendance  at  church  on  a  Sunday.  ...  I  believe  we  best  main- 
tain the  country  we  love,  and  the  State  of  which  we  are  a  part,  and 
of  whose  government  we  have  our  share  of  personal  responsibility,  by 
a  constant  attendance  on  the  public  and  social  worship  of  God.  I 
believe  it  to  be  to  the  interest  of  the  country,  of  the  town,  and  of 
the  individual  soul  that  the  habit  be  not  abandoned.  ...  It 
would,  in  my  judgment,  if  that  were  to  happen,  be  impossible  to 
maintain  liberty,  self-government,  or  any  form  of  republic,  which 
depends  for  its  success  on  the  character  of  its  citizenship.  ...  I 
know  the  temptations  on  a  summer 's  day  to  get  into  the  country, 
among  fields  and  forests,  and,  to  use  a  familiar  phrase,  to  stretch 
your  legs  by  a  walk  or  a  ride.  But  whether  it  be  better  to  do 
it  may  possibly  depend  on  the  question  whether  the  legs  or  the 
soul  be  the  most  important  part  of  a  man." 


250  MASTERMINDS 

This  lesson  is  nowhere  more  vividly  pictured  for  our  age 
than  in  Abbey's  mural  painting  in  the  Public  Library  at 
Boston,  of  Sir  Galahad  in  the  quest  of  the  Grail. 
Abbey  paints  here  no  mere  brilliant  maze  of  mediaeval  color 
and  chivalrous  romance.  It  is  alive  with  a  vital  applica- 
tion. It  is  an  exponent  of  every  thoughtless  heir  who 
comes  to  himself. 

First  is  the  favored  youth,  born  in  the  purple.  The  good 
will  of  heaven  is  prefigured  by  divine  benedicite.  Red 
cardinals  endue  him  in  pomp  and  ceremonial  with  every 
indulgence  of  Holy  Church.  The  school  confers  its  finest 
teacher — a  teacher  without  force  and  who  catered  to  the 
child,  not  daring  to  cross  his  assumption  that  he  could  get 
everything  for  nothing.  For  did  not  the  State,  King 
Arthur  and  the  Round  Table  set  him  apart  and  decorate 
him  as  picked  flower  of  knight  errantry  to  seek  the  Grail, 
remove  the  spell  of  the  city's  sin  and  wear  the  sword 
Excalibur? 

Everything  is  to  be  done  for  him,  and  he  need  do 
nothing  for  himself. 

Triply  blessed  with  all  the  world  had  to  give — Church, 
State  and  School — he  sets  out — but  to  fail! 

This  is  depicted  in  the  tragedy  at  the  end  wall.  He  can- 
not remove  the  spell  from  the  city  which  lies  enshadowed 
by  evil  while  rulers  and  citizens  sleep  as  moral  corpses. 
Hmnbled  to  the  dregs  of  his  soul  by  his  failure,  crushed 
with  defeat,  the  proud  knight  turns  empty  away,  learning 
the  great  lesson  of  life  that,  even  royally  backed  as  he  was, 
he  could  not  get  something  for  nothing;  he  could  not  he 
victor  by  having  everything  done  for  him  and  by  doing 
nothing  for  himself. 

Suddenly,  on  the  next  wall,  a  voluptuous  temptress,  beau- 
tifully gowned,  rides  by.     His  eye  sees  in  her  lap  the  skulls 


GEORGE    F  RISE  IE    HOAR  251 

of  her  moral  victims.  He  sees — refuses — turns — exerts  for 
the  first  time  in  his  life  moral  struggle  and  exerts  it  with 
sweat  of  blood.  Here  springs  up  within  him  the  motor 
whose  friction  generates  a  current  that  connects  his  will- 
power with  the  power  of  the  Infinite.  Not  only  does  it 
unlock  the  pent  layers  of  moral  energy  in  his  own  soul,  but 
back  in  the  city  it  dispels  the  cloud  of  sin  and 
moral  stupor!  King  and  people  awake  to  righteousness 
and  sin  not.  Before  him  falls  the  drawbridge  over 
which,  empowered  with  invisible  power,  he  slays  the  vices 
and  releases  the  virtues.  Resisting  even  with  virtue's 
daughter  a  stay  of  duty,  he  pushes  on  to  the  gleam  incar- 
nadined in  the  Grail  whose  Christ-blood  he  now  beholds. 
He  ends  the  quest  in  a  barque  that  breasts  the  crimson  sea 
of  glass  mingled  with  fire  until  it  bears  him  to  the  entrance 
to  the  Holy  City. 

The  determinant  of  destiny  for  that  young  knight  was 
just  at  this  point  in  the  moral  tragedy — not  where  in  mag- 
nificence everything  was  done  for  him,  but  where,  the  first 
time  in  his  life,  alone  and  humbled,  he  did  something  for 
himself  and  brought  emotion  into  execution. 

Just  at  this  point  was  Hoar's  determinant  of  destiny! 
Here  under  God  through  the  exertions  of  his  own  will  he 
came  not  to  his  ancestral,  but  to  his  own  birthday;  he 
attained  not  to  his  inherited,  but  to  his  own  birthrights. 

AS  A  STATESMAN 

Thus  reborn,  first  as  a  student  of  truth,  he  next  came  to 
himself  as  a  statesman. 

Whittier  once  said  to  a  young  man  wishing  to  live  a  life 
of  worth :  Give  yourself  to  some  great  cause  not  yet  become 
popular.  When  Hoar  began  his  manhood,  such  a 
cause  had  its  underground  stream  then  existent.     It  took 


252  MASTERMINDS 

hold  of  his  emptied  soul,  became  the  fountain-head  of  his 
life,  and  altogether  possessed  him.  Had  it  not  been  for 
this,  his  career,  at  least  as  it  was,  would  not  have  been.  He 
supposed,  he  confused,  that  he  was  absolutely  without 
capacity  for  public  speaking,  expected  never  to  be  married, 
perhaps  to  earn  twelve  or  fifteen  hundred  dollars  a  year, 
which  would  enable  him  to  have  a  room  of  his  own  in  some 
quiet  house  and  to  earn  enough  to  collect  rare  books. 

A  harmless  book-worm — such  was  his  ambitious  program. 
But  something  happened! 

It  was  the  pulse  of  this  new  young  cause  throbbing 
through  the  East. 

"When  I  first  came  to  manhood,"  he  recounted,  "and 
began  to  take  part  in  public  affairs,  that  greatest  of  crimes, 
human  slavery,  was  entrenched  everywhere  in  power  in 
this  republic.  Congress  and  the  Supreme  Court,  commerce 
and  trade  and  social  life  alike  submitted  to  its  imperious 
and  arrogant  sway.  JMr,  Webster  declared  that  there  was 
no  North  and  that  the  South  went  clear  up  to  the  Canada 
line.  The  hope  of  many  wise  and  conservative  and,  as  I 
now  believe,  patriotic  men,  of  saving  this  country  from 
being  rent  into  fragments  was  in  leaving  to  slavery  forever 
the  great  territory  between  the  Mississippi  and  the  Pacific, 
in  the  fugitive  slave  law,  a  law  under  which  freemen  were 
taken  from  the  soil  of  Massachusetts.  There  was  some- 
thing in  that  struggle  with  slavery  which  exalted  the 
hearts  of  those  who  had  a  part  in  it,  however  terrible,  as  no 
other  political  battle  in  history.  I  became  of  age  at  just 
about  the  time  when  the  Free-soil  party  was  bom.  It 
awakened  in  my  heart  in  early  youth  all  the  enthusiasm 
which  my  nature  was  capable  of  holding,  an  enthusiasm 
which  from  that  day  to  this  has  never  grown  cold.  No 
political  party  in  history  was  ever  formed  for   objects   so 


GEO  ROE    F  RISE  IE    HOAR  253 

great  and  noble.  It  was  a  pretty  good  education,  better 
than  that  of  our  nniversity,  to  be  a  young  Free-soiler  in 
Massachusetts."  In  1848,  with  yoiuig  Hoar's  father  a 
founder,  the  Free-soil  movement,  later  to  grow  into  the 
Republican  party,  came  into  being  in  the  famous  Free-soil 
convention  in  Worcester. 

The  heroism  of  the  cause  was  everywhere  in  the  air. 
Whittier,  Longfellow,  Lowell  and  Bryant  were  baptizing 
the  movement  with  song. 

Such  was  its  force  exerted  upon  the  young  man's  imagi- 
nation that  in  1847  its  pressure  had  drawn  him  to  settle  in 
Worcester,  the  city  that  mothered  it  at  the  Commonwealth 's 
Heart. 

"I  have  never  regretted  the  choice,"  he  once  concluded, 
"and  have  spent  my  life  there,  except  when  in  Washington, 
for  considerably  more  than  half  a  century,  Worcester  com- 
bines the  youth  and  vigor  and  ambition  of  a  Western  city 
with  the  refinement  and  conveniences  and  the  pride  in  a 
noble  history  of  an  old  American  community.  I  can  con- 
ceive of  no  life  more  delightful  for  a  man  of  public  spirits 
than  to  belong  to  a  community  like  that. ' '  Shortly  before 
the  end  of  his  life  he  said,  "I  believe  I  shall  die  this  after- 
noon. I  have  done  the  best  I  could.  I  have  always  loved 
this  town  and  its  people. ' ' 

To  the  law-office  where  he  was  beginning  practice  in 
Worcester,  came  such  leaders  as  Sumner,  Adams,  Andrew, 
Palfrey,  Garrison,  Burlingame,  Howe,  Dana,  Henry  Wil- 
son and  Samuel  Hoar. 

Though  drawn  irresistibly  to  settle  by  the  cradle  of  the 
new  passion,  believing  that  where  the  heart  is  the  home  is, 
beyond  that  young  Hoar  was  silent  and  an  onlooker. 

But  in  1850  events  were  rapidly  coming  to  a  crisis. 
Webster's  Seventh  of  March  Speech  broke  faith  with  his 


254  MASTERMINDS 

Free-soil  supporters  and  raised  the  Free-soil  party  to  a 
pitch  of  unbounded  excitement  against  the  extension  of 
slavery  into  the  territories. 

"Hoar!  Hoar!"  he  heard  cried  at  a  great  Mechanics 
Hall  meeting  in  the  autumn  of  this  year,  1850,  when  the 
expected  speaker  failed  to  appear.  Reddening  in  confu- 
sion, the  young  man  stammered  an  excuse. 

"Platform!  Platform!"  insisted  the  people.  He  spoke, 
and  his  speech  found  out  a  new  vein  and  evoked  in 
him  confidence  in  himself  as  a  speaker,  while  it  evoked  in 
the  people  such  a  reception  that  thenceforward  he  was  con- 
stantly called  upon.  Thus  he  began  as  a  statesman.  In 
the  meantime  Judge  Emory  Washburn  had  received  Hoar 
into  partnersliip  for  practice  in  Worcester  County,  a  prac- 
tice he  soon  was  to  succeed  to,  owing  to  the  election  of 
Judge  Washburn  as  Governor. 

From  1849  to  1869  so  great  grew  the  professional  service 
that  at  one  time  or  other  Hoar  became  counsel  for  every  one 
of  the  fifty-two  towns  of  Worcester  County.  Under  the 
stj*ain,  too  much  for  any  man,  his  health  broke  in  1868,  and 
he  departed  for  Europe.  Up  to  this  time,  at  the  early  age 
of  twenty-five,  he  had  been  elected  to  the  Legislature  and 
served  the  House  in  1851,  where  he  was  a  member  of  the 
Law  Committee.  He  declined  reelection.  In  1857  his 
party  sent  him  to  the  Massachusetts  Senate,  where  he 
became  chairman  of  the  Judiciary  Committee,  when  he 
accomplished  the  abolishment  of  the  old  common  law  sys- 
tem of  pleading  in  Massachusetts,  and,  marked  as  a  progres- 
sive in  other  ways,  was  derided  for  making  the  first  ten- 
hour-a-day  labor  speech  for  a  shorter  day. 

In  1854  the  Know-nothing  party  in  an  anti-foreign  cam- 
paign swept  the  State.     It  was  opposed  to  the  last  ditch  by 


GEORGE    F  RISE  IE    HOAR  255 

the  same  sane  spirit  in  which  Hoar  lat^r  opposed  the 
A.  P.  A. 

When  absent  in  Europe  in  1868,  as  he  had  already  against 
his  will  been  pressed  into  service  as  a  young  statesman  in 
the  State  Legislature,  so  now  still  against  his  will,  during 
his  absence,  his  name  was  decided  upon  as  a  candidate  for 
his  district's  national  Representative  at  Congress.  Back 
from  abroad,  during  the  session  of  the  "Worcester  conven- 
tion that  nominated  him,  he  had  no  desire  to  be  nominated 
and  went  for  a  long  ride.  When,  with  difficulty,  he  was 
prevailed  upon  to  accept,  he  stood  out  and  declared  the 
principle  that  always  made  him  a  statesman  -.''It  is  by  your 
free  choice  that  this  nomination  has  been  conferred.  It  has 
not  been  begged  for  or  bargained  for  or  intrigued  for  or 
crawled  into."  Such  was  the  declaration  of  statesmanship 
to  which,  in  season  and  out  of  season,  he  kept  true  up  to  the 
end  when  he  concluded:  "7  have  never  lifted  my  finger  or 
spoken  a  word  to  any  man  to  secure  or  to  promote  my  own 
election  to  any  office." 

When  entering  the  House  of  Representatives  in  1869, 
Grant's  administration  was  at  its  height  and  at  its  depth. 
Henry  Wilson  and  Sumner  were  there  of  the  old  war- 
horses,  and  Blaine,  Garfield,  Allison  and  others  of  the  new. 
Sunset  Cox  sought  to  turn  down  the  new  member  by  saying 
after  he  had  made  a  maiden  speech :  ' '  Massachusetts  does 
not  send  her  Hector  to  the  field ! ' ' 

"  It  is  not  necessary  when  the  attack  is  led  by  Thersites, ' ' 
was  the  retort — a  rejoinder  that  won  Hoar  the  field. 

Into  the  Republican  camp  of  reconstruction,  Hoar  came 
as  a  purging  finger,  not  as  a  blind  partisan.  He  believed 
and  was  a  moving  leader  in  all  the  positive  essentials  the 
party  of  Lincoln  was  carrying  out.  He  rejoiced  in  the 
return  of  the  Southern  States  to  the  Union,  and  in  the  five 


256  MASTER     MINDS 

million  f  reedmen  and  their  riorht  to  labor  and  receive  wages. 
He  led  in  the  treatment  of  the  huge  war-debt  and  the 
exaction  of  the  war-claim  from  England. 

He  did  not,  however,  hide  his  eyes  from  the  failures  of 
reconstruction,  South  or  North,  As  to  the  North  he 
deplored  the  failure  to  vote  sums  for  education  in  the 
South,  for  white  as  well  as  black. 

He  frankly  recognized  the  defects  of  the  Northern  man- 
agement of  reconstruction,  saying:  "I  myself,  although  I 
have  always  maintained,  and  do  now,  the  equal  right  of  all 
men  of  whatever  color  or  race  to  a  share  in  the  government 
of  the  country,  felt  a  thrill  of  sadness  when  I  saw  the 
Legislature  of  Louisiana  in  session  in  the  winter  of  1873. 
They  (the  Southerners)  had  persuaded  themselves  to  believe 
that  a  contest  for  political  power  with  a  party  largely  com- 
posed of  negroes  was  a  contest  for  their  civilization  itself. 
They  thought  it  to  be  a  fight  for  life  with  a  pack  of  wolves. 
I  incline  to  think  that  a  large  number  of  the  men  who  got 
political  office  in  the  South,  when  the  men  who  had  taken 
part  in  the  Rebellion  were  still  disfranchised,  were  of  a 
character  that  would  not  be  tolerated  in  public  office  in 
the  North.  In  general,  it  was  impossible  not  to  feel  a  cer- 
tain sympathy  with  a  people  who,  whatever  else  had  been 
their  fault,  never  were  guilty  of  corruption  or  meanness  or 
the  desire  to  make  money  out  of  public  office,  in  the  in- 
tolerable loathing  which  they  felt  for  these  strangers  who 
had  taken  possession  of  the  high  places." 

With  this  sympathy,  he  yet  fought  fiercely  against  the 
refusal  of  the  Southern  people  to  secure  the  negro  the  bal- 
lot. 

As  to  his  Northern  brethren  his  most  outstanding  contest 
was  against  the  corruption  at  the  heart  of  the  Republican 
party  itself.     ' '  When  I  entered  Congress  in  1869, ' '  he  con- 


GEORGE    FBI  SB  IE    HOAR  257 

fessed,  ''the  corridors  of  the  Capitol  and  the  committee- 
rooms  were  crowded  with  lohliyists.  Adroit  and  solf-soekinp: 
men  were  often  able,  in  the  mnltitnde  of  claims  which  must 
necessarily  be  disposed  of  by  a  rapid  examination,  to  impose 
on  committees  of  the  House."  Reviewing:  the  period  when 
he  had  left  the  House  a  little  later,  he  said,  ''My  own  pub- 
lic life  has  been  a  very  brief  and  insif^rnificant  one,  extend- 
ing little  beyond  the  duration  of  a  sing:le  term  of  Senatorial 
ofifice,  but  in  that  brief  period  I  have  seen  five  judpres  of  a 
high  court  of  the  United  States  driven  from  office  by  threats 
of  impeachment  for  corruption  or  mal-administration. " 

Among  the  chief  of  corrupt  acts  was  when  "the  national 
triiunph, ' '  the  Union  Pacific  Railroad,  from  ocean  to  ocean, 
became  by  the  verdict  of  three  Congressional  committees  the 
"national  shame."  The  business  of  this  corporation  was 
mixed  with  the  Credit  Mohilier,  in  which  Peter  was 
robbed  to  pay  Paul,  and  in  which  the  money  borrowed  to 
construct  the  road  was  divided  in  bonus  dividends,  men 
paying  thirty  cents  on  one  dollar.  Shares  of  stock  alsp 
were  offered  as  gifts  to  secure  favorable  legislation  as  to  the 
Union  Pacific  Railroad.  All  was  a  source  of  shame  to  every 
patriotic  Congressman  until  the  issue  was  met  and  punish- 
ment meted  out — a  rectification  in  which  Hoar  was  a  leader. 

But  other  corruption  was  rampant.  For  example,  in 
1872,  a  man,  John  D.  Sanborn,  applied  for  a  collection  of 
withheld  taxes,  and  from  application  to  a  few  distillers 
increased  his.  list  in  1878  to  two  thousand  and  five  hun- 
dred and  ninety-two,  collecting  half  a  million,  of 
which  he  took  one  half  himself!  Such  was  the  kind  of 
claimants  that  arose  during  the  administration  under  Gen- 
eral Grant,  whose  good-natured  trust  blinded  him  to  the 
crimes  of  the  corruptionists  of  which  these  two  are  but 
samples.  The  Tweed  ring  and  New  York  gang  of  grafters 
17 


258  MASTER     MINDS 

were  bad  enough.  But  Hoar's  hands  were  full  with  the 
Massachusetts  centre  of  evil.  He  saw  that  Massachusetts 
indeed  furnished  the  leaders  in  a  school  of  national  corrup- 
tion within  the  Republican  partj',  which  with  dismay  he 
hastened  to  expose.  This  Massachusetts  ring  came  to  a 
head  in  General  Benjamin  F.  Butler,  whom  Grant  had 
relieved  from  duty  in  the  army  in  the  Ci\'il  War  only  to 
allow  him  to  enter  his  party  counsels  in  his  later  Pres- 
idency. 

' '  The  success, ' '  declared  Mr.  Hoar,  ' '  of  Butler 's  attempt 
to  use  and  consolidate  the  political  forces  of  Massachusetts 
would  have  been  the  corruption  of  her  youth,  the  destruc- 
tion of  everything  valuable  in  her  character  and  the  estab- 
lishment at  the  mouth  of  the  Charles  River  of  another  New 
York  with  its  frauds,  Tweed  rings  and  scandals. ' ' 

As  early  as  1871  the  fight  took  the  form  of  a  death 
struggle  between  Hoar  and  Butler.  At  Washington  and  on 
home  ground  Hoar  contested  every  inch,  first  preventing 
Butler  from  receiving  the  nomination  for  Governor  at  a 
Worcester  convention,  in  which,  to  guard  against  a  Butler 
disorder,  fifty  police  had  to  be  called  in.  By  1873  open  rup- 
ture resulted,  in  which  Butler  attacked  Hoar  with  fiercest 
broadsides,  and  Hoar  replied  effectively.  Butler,  who  had 
been  the  counsel  for  the  corrupt  deal  of  the  Union  Pacific 
Railroad  and  Credit  Mohilier,  was  also  the  father  of  the 
greenback  measure  for  irredeemable  paper  money,  which 
meant  for  the  immense  war-debt,  repudiation.  The  oppo- 
sition led  by  Hoar  and  others  killed  the  measure,  and  Pres- 
ident Grant  declared,  "Let  it  be  understood  that  no  repudi- 
ator  of  one  farthing  of  our  public  debt  will  be  trusted  in 
public  place." 

"I  am  compelled  to  declare  with  great  reluctance  and 
regret,"  declared  Governor   John   A.    Andrew,  "that   the 


GEORGE    F  RISE  IE    HOAR  259 

whole  course  of  proceeding  under  General  Butler  in  this 
Commonwealth  seems  to  have  been  desijorned  and  adopted  to 
afford  means  to  persons  of  bad  character  to  make  money 
unauspiciously. ' ' 

Speakinc:  of  such  abuses  from  within  the  Republican 
parts'-,  IToar  did  not  cover  it  up,  but  exclaimed:  "Who 
writes  the  history  of  our  time  will  record  them  with  inex- 
orable pen. ' ' 

In  destroyinc:  such  men  who  prey  upon  the  nation's 
vitals,  Hoar  led  with  others  in  producino;  a  civil-service  law 
to  take  one  hundred  thousand  offices  out  of  the  system  of 
public  patronasre  and  Senatorial  dictation. 

All  the  time  as  a  Representative  and  Con^essman,  and 
later  as  Senator,  Hoar  was  serving  regularly  on  the  various 
committees  by  which  the  hard  and  important  work  of  Con- 
gress is  transacted.  The  Judiciary  Committee  he  especially 
mastered.  He  was  also  largely  interested  in  the  matter  of 
exonerating  Oliver  0.  Howard  from  blame  in  the  contro- 
versy as  to  his  conduct  of  the  Freedmen's  Bureau. 

He  led  the  Eads  bill  to  victory  which  secured  the  open- 
ing of  the  Misvsissippi  to  commerce  by  the  means  of  jetties. 
Against  a  large  majority  of  the  Republicans  who  would 
claim  it  without  such  a  commission,  it  was  his  exercise  of 
independent  judgment  that  led  him  to  vote  with  the  Demo- 
crats of  the  House  for  the  Electoral  Commission  bill  of  1877 
to  decide  upon  the  Presidential  election  in  the  contested 
election  between  Hayes  and  Tilden.  By  this  act  what  might 
have  been  another  civil  war  was  averted  from  the  nation. 
At  the  close  of  his  Congressional  service.  Congressman  Hoar 
sought  to  end  his  public  life  and  refused  renomination 
to  the  House. 

In  1877  the  people  of  the  Commonwealth  chose  him 
United  States  Senator.     He  attributed  it  not  to  his   own 


260  MASTER     31 IND8 

greatness,  but  to  their  desire  to  rid  the  State  of  the  misrule 
of  Butler.  "I'll  not  get  twenty-five  votes,"  he  declared 
when  first  approached.  ' '  I  can  truly  say, ' '  he  added  after- 
wards, "that  I  was  as  indifferent  to  the  result  as  to  the 
question  whether  I  should  walk  on  one  side  of  the  street  or 
the  other.  I  had  an  infinite  longing  for  my  home,  my  pro- 
fession and  my  library." — "I  never  found  public  employ- 
ment pleasant  or  congenial. ' ' 

Probably  no  senator  was  ever  a  greater  worker  or,  undis- 
turbed by  social  cares,  took  his  duties  more  conscientiously. 
Living  in  the  plainest  boarding-houses  with  his  wife,  on  fare 
often  that  a  two-doUar-a-day  laborer  surpassed,  he  worked 
harder  in  continuous  labor  than  any  other  member  of  Con- 
gress or  senator  has  ever  worked.  His  fratemals  thus 
marked  his  appearance: 

"In  the  Senate,"  said  Senator  Lodge,  "he  was  a  great 
debater,  quick  in  retort,  with  all  the  resources  of  his  mind 
always  at  his  command.  Although  he  had  no  marked  gifts 
of  presence,  voice  or  delivery,  he  was  none  the  less  a  master 
of  brilliant  and  powerful  speech.  His  style  was  noble  and 
dignified,  with  a  touch  of  the  stateliness  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  rich  in  imagery  and  allusion,  full  of  the  apt  quota- 
tions which  an  unerring  taste,  an  iron  memory,  and  the 
widest  reading  combined  to  furnish.  When  he  was  roused, 
when  his  imagination  was  fired,  his  feelings  engaged,  or  his 
indignation  awakened,  he  was  capable  of  a  pasaonate 
eloquence  which  touched  every  chord  of  emotion  and  left 
no  one  who  listened  to  him  unmoved.  At  these  moments, 
whether  he  spoke  on  the  floor  of  the  Senate,  in  the  presence 
of  a  great  popular  audience,  or  in  the  intimacy  of  private 
conversation,  the  words  glowed,  the  sentences  marshaled 
themselves  in  stately  sequence,  and  the  idealism  which  was 
the  dominant  note  of  his  Ufe  was  heard  sounding  clear  and 


GEORGE    FBI  SB  IE    HOAR  261 

strong  above  and  beyond  all  pleas  of  interest  or 
expediency. ' ' 

"One  watching  him  in  the  Senate,"  said  another  col- 
league, '  *  might  think  him  idly  passing  away  the  hour.  He 
was  watching  and  listening.  He  seemed  indifferent  to  what 
was  going  on.  But  let  an  error  in  argument  be  made  or  a 
misstatement  of  fact  asserted,  or,  to  him,  false  conclusions 
drawn  in  the  course  of  that  debate,  and  instantly  his  voice 
would  ring  throughout  the  chamber. ' ' 

* '  I  doubt, ' '  said  a  keen  neighbor  of  his  Senatorial  desk, 
"if  he  ever  really  knew  an  idle  waking  hour.  How  often  as 
we  watched  him  we  saw  his  lips  moving,  framing  the  words 
of  his  unuttered  thought.  Those  who  knew  him  best  could 
not  help  feeling  that  even  in  his  moment  of  apparent  relax- 
ation and  good  fellowship,  there  was  going  on  within  him 
that  mysterious  thing  which  we  sometimes  call  '  unconscious 
cerebration;'  that  his  mind  was  ever  at  work  solving  the 
weightiest  questions. ' ' 

Grounded  in  American  and  English  history,  certain  of 
whose  epochs  he  himself  treated  in  monographs  and  papers. 
Senator  Hoar's  mind  was  preeminently  fitted  to  deal  with 
questions  from  the  point  of  view  of  a  patriotic  student  and 
statesman.^ 

As  Senator  he  thus  was  an  active  sharer  and  close 
observer  of  the  high  tasks  of  statesmanship  from  Sumner's 
day  to  the  congresses  of  a  later  day.  To  such  committees  as 
the  Conunittee  of  Judiciary,  which  he  frequently  graced 
and  guided ;  of  Indian  Affairs  and  Agriculture ;  of  Patents ; 
of  the  Revision  of  the  Laws ;  of  the  Library  Committee ;  of 


iHe  was  at  one  time  President  of  the  American  Antiquarian 
Society,  whose  original  manuscripts  and  data  of  past  epochs  as  they 
lie  in  the  Worcester  society's  building  are  sources  of  national  value. 


262  MASTERMINDS 

the  early  Committee  on  War  Claims,  involving  hundreds 
and  hundreds  of  millions — is  to  be  added  the  Committee  of 
Privileges  and  Elections,  in  which  he  put  forward  one  of  his 
most  contested  bills — the  Federal  Election  Bill  in  1890 — for 
the  control  of  the  uncorrupted  ballot  in  the  South  through 
national  supervision.  The  bill  was  lost  by  a  slight  margin. 
It  is  to  be  recalled  that  he  was  one  of  the  three  senators 
against  all  the  others  to  support  President  Hayes  in  his 
institution  of  civil-service  reform.  Offered  the  distin- 
guished post  of  ambassador  to  England  by  President  Hayes, 
he  declined,  as  he  likewise  did  when  offered  the  same  post 
by  President  McKinley.  He  also  took  great  pleasure  in 
fathering  the  Fisheries  Treaty,  July  10,  1888,  by  which  he 
secured  favorable  rights  for  our  fishermen  off  the  northern 
coasts  of  America. 

Were  measures  unpopular  that  he  deemed  right,  he  never 
flinched  or  trimmed. 

The  Eiver  and  Harbor  Bill  of  1882,  to  grant  eighteen  mil- 
lion for  rendering  navigable  the  Mississippi  and  other 
streams,  he  deeply  espoused.  Against  him  was  the  popular 
opinion.  Democratic  and  Republican.  Excitement  ran  high. 
"This  measure  is  right,"  he  concluded  with  himself.  "Is 
my  father's  son  to  sneak  home  to  Massachusetts  having 
voted  against  a  bill  that  is  clearly  righteous  and  just  because 
he  is  afraid  of  public  sentiment  ? ' '  He  thereupon  risked  his 
seat  and  voted  ' '  yes ' '  in  the  face  of  a  widespread  and  almost 
universal  protest  of  indignation  among  press  and  people. 
"If  I  had  flinched  or  apologized,  I  should  have  been 
destroyed ! ' '  was  his  verdict  afterwards,  ' '  but  I  stood  to  my 
guns." 

The  greatest  problem  in  statesmanship  on  which  Hoar 
independently  moved  on  the  troubled  waters  which  are  yet 
unsettled,  is  that  of  the  race  question.     "The  relation  to 


GEOUGE    F  RISE  IE    HOAR  263 

each  other  in  a  republic  of  men  of  different  races  is  a  ques- 
tion which  has  vexed  the  American  people  from  the  bej^in- 
ning.  It  is,  if  I  am  not  mistaken,  to  vex  them  still  more. 
As  surely  as  the  path  in  which  our  fathers  entered  a  hun- 
dred years  ago  led  to  safety,  to  strength,  to  glor>',  so  surely 
will  the  path  in  which  we  now  propose  to  enter  bring  us  to 
shame,  to  weakness  and  to  peril. 

* '  In  dealing  with  a  class  of  immigrants,  I  would  prescribe 
as  strict  a  rule  as  the  strictest  for  ascertaining  whether  the 
immigrant  meant  in  good  faith  to  be  an  American  citizen, 
whether  he  meant  to  end  his  life  here,  to  bring  his  wife  and 
children  with  him,  whether  he  loved  American  institutions, 
whether  he  was  fit  to  understand  the  political  problems  with 
which  the  people  had  to  deal,  whether  he  had  individual 
worth  or  health  of  body  or  mind.  I  would  make,  if  need  be, 
ten  years  or  twenty  years  as  the  necessary  period  of  resi- 
dence for  naturalization.  One  tiling  I  have  never  con- 
sented to  is  that  a  man  shall  be  kept  out  of  this  country,  or 
kept  in  a  position  of  inferiority,  while  he  is  in  it,  because  of 
his  color,  because  of  his  birthplace,  or  because  of  his  race. ' ' 

Senator  Hoar  began  to  utter  these  principles  from  which 
he  has  never  moved,  as  early  as  the  exclusion  in  California 
of  Chinese  at  the  end  of  the  sixties.  He  charged  it  a  con- 
flict with  the  doctrines  on  which  our  fathers  founded  the 
republic,  with  the  principles  of  the  constitution  of  almost 
all  the  states,  including  that  of  California,  and  with  the 
declaration  of  leading  statesmen  at  the  time  of  the  Bur- 
lingame  treaty  up  to  the  year  1868  and  to  1878  at  the 
time  of  the  bill  against  Chinese  laborers.  His  stand  thus 
taken  in  1880  he  also  maintained  in  the  bill  to  exclude 
Chinese  laborers.  When  it  expired  in  twenty  years,  and 
was  renewed  with  moderation  in  1902,  he  declared:  "I  feel 
bound  to  enter  a  protest. ' '    His  stand  was  one  not  as  to  the 


264  MASTERMINDS 

Chinese,  but  as  to  a  principle  which  he  saw,  and  propheti- 
cally saw,  would  involve,  and  has  involved  us,  in  the  most 
serious  national  problem  of  our  time — class  distinction  as 
to  the  races. 

"I  hold,"  he  has  declared,  "that  every  human  soul  has 
its  rights  dependent  upon  its  individual  personal  worth 
and  not  dependent  upon  color  or  race,  and  that  all  races, 
all  colors,  all  nationalities  contain  persons  entitled  to  be 
recognized  everywhere  they  go  on  the  face  of  the  earth  as 
the  equals  of  every  other  man !  The  problem  of  to-day  is 
not  to  convert  the  heathen  from  heathenism.  It  is  to 
convert  the  Christian  from  heathenism.  How  our 
race  troubles  would  disappear  if  the  dominant  Saxon 
would  but  obey  in  liis  treatment  of  the  heathen  races  the 
authority  of  the  fundamental  laws  on  which  his  own  insti- 
tutions rest.  We  easily  forgive  our  own  white  fellow  cit- 
izens for  the  unutterable  and  terrible  cruelties  they  have 
committed  on  men  of  other  races.  But  if  a  people  just 
coming  out  of  slavery  or  barbarism  commit  a  hundredth 
part  of  the  same  offense,  our  righteous  indignation  knows 
no  bounds." 

As  to  the  acquisition  of  Hawaii  he  said  in  the  Senate 
July  5,  1898 :  "  If  this  be  the  first  step  in  the  acquisition  of 
dominion  over  bai'barous  archipelagoes  in  distant  seas;  if 
we  are  to  enter  into  competition  with  the  great  powers  of 
Europe  in  the  plundering  of  China,  in  the  division  of 
Africa;  if  we  are  to  quit  our  own  to  stand  on  foreign 
lands;  if  our  commerce  is  hereafter  to  be  forced  upon 
unwilling  peoples  at  the  cannon's  mouth;  if  we  are  our- 
selves to  be  governed  in  part  by  people  to  whom  the  Decla- 
ration of  Independence  is  a  stranger,  or,  worse  stiU,  if  we 
are  to  govern  subject  and  vassal  states,  trampling  as  we  do 
it  on  our  great  charter,  which  records  aloft  the  liberty  and 


GEORGE    FKISBIE    IIOAB  265 

the  destiny  of  individual  manhood, — then  let  us  resist  this 
thing*  in  the  bej^inninfi^,  and  let  us  resist  it  to  death!" 

Later  as  to  the  Philippines  he  stated  directly  out  and 
out:  "I  do  not  agree  with  those  gentlemen  who  tliink  we 
should  wrest  the  Philippine  Islands  from  Spain  and  take 
charge  of  them  ourselves.  I  do  not  think  we  should 
acquire  Cuba,  as  the  result  of  the  existing  war,  to  be 
annexed  to  the  United  States." 

After  the  treaty  of  December  18,  1898,  by  which  we 
bought  the  Philippines  from  Spain,  President  McKinley 
thus  greeted  Senator  Hoar:  "How  are  you  feeling  this 
morning,  Mr.  Senator?"  "Pretty  pugnacious,  I  confess, 
Mr.  President."  Tears  arose  in  the  benignant  chief  exec- 
utive's eyes  as  he  said:  "I  shall  always  love  you  whatever 
you  do," 

"I  know,"^  were  Hoar's  ringing  words,  "how  feeble  is  a 
single  voice  amid  this  din  and  tempest,  this  delirium  of 
empire.  It  may  be  that  the  battle  for  this  day  is  lost,  but 
I  have  an  assured  faith  in  the  future.  I  have  an  assured 
faith  in  justice  and  the  love  of  liberty  of  the  American 
people.  The  stars  in  their  courses  fight  for  freedom.  The 
Ruler  of  the  heavens  is  on  that  side.  If  the  battle  of 
to-day  go  against  it,  I  appeal  to  anotlier  day,  not  distant 
and  sure  to  come.  I  appeal  from  the  clapping  of  hands 
and  the  stamping  of  feet  and  the  brawling  and  shouting  to 
the  quiet  chamber  where  the  fathers  gathered  in  Philadel- 
phia. I  appeal  from  the  empire  to  the  republic.  I  appeal 
from  the  millionaire  and  the  boss  and  the  wire-puller  and 
the  manager  to  the  statesman  of  the  elder  time,  in  whose 
eyes  a  guinea  never  glistened,  who  lived  and  died  poor,  and 
who  left  to  his  children  and  his  countrymen  a  good  name, 


lUttered  somewhat  later. 


266  MASTERMINDS 

far  better  than  riches.  I  appeal  from  the  present,  bloated 
with  material  prosperity,  drunk  with  the  lust  of  empire,  to 
another  and  better  age.  I  appeal  from  the  present  to  the 
future  and  to  the  past. ' ' 

' '  The  treaty  was  ratified  by  the  Senate  February  6,  1899, 
late  in  the  afternoon,"  recounts  Congressman  Lovering  of 
Massachusetts,  ' '  and  it  so  happened  that  I  went  over  to  the 
Senate  next  morning  to  ask  Senator  Hoar  to  get  the  appro- 
priation in  the  River  and  Harbor  Bill  increased  for 
Plymouth  Harbor.  A  great  storm  had  washed  away  a  mile 
of  breakwater,  and  I  said  to  him  that  there  was  danger  of 
Plymouth  Rock's  being  washed  away.  He  replied  very 
seriously,  and  almost  with  tears  in  his  eyes,  ' '  Mr.  Lovering, 
Plymouth  Rock  was  washed  away  yesterday  afternoon  at 
four  o'clock." 

Senator  Hoar  clung  to  his  conviction  even  during 
the  war.  "I  think  that  under  the  head  of  Mabini  and 
Aguinaldo,  and  their  associates,  but  for  our  interference  a 
republic  would  have  been  established  at  Luzon  which  would 
have  compared  with  the  best  of  the  republican  governments 
between  the  United  States  and  Cape  Horn.  If  we  had 
treated  them  as  we  did  Cuba,  we  should  have  been  saved 
the  public  shame  of  violating  not  only  our  own  pledges,  but 
the  rule  of  conduct  which  we  had  declared  to  be  self- 
evident  truth  in  the  beginning  of  our  history. ' ' 

Senator  Hoar  here  as  throughout  was  an  independent 
within  his  party  and  remained  there,  declaring  he  could 
accomplish  organic  results  he  elsewise,  as  an  independent 
without  a  party,  never  could  have  accomplished.  One  vote 
in  his  party  would  have  saved  the  vote  that  went  for  the 
Philippine  Treaty,  he  declared,  and  one  would  have  held 
back  the  Spanish  Treaty  on  the  part  of  those  disagreeing 
with  the  party  who  had  left  it  as  independents. 


GEORGE    FRI8BIE    HOAR  267 

Nevertheless  he  spared  not  the  rod.  ''When  I  think  of 
my  party,  whose  ??loiy  and  whose  service  to  liberty  are 
the  pride  of  my  life,  crushing  out  this  people  in  their 
effort  to  establish  a  good  republic,  I  feel  very  much  as  if 
I  had  learned  that  my  father  or  some  other  honored  an- 
cestor had  been  a  slaveholder,  or  had  boasted  that  he  had 
introduced  a  new  and  better  kind  of  handcuffs  or  fetters 
to  be  worn  by  the  slaves  during  the  horrors  of  the 
middle  passage."  In  the  case  of  the  colonies,  which 
since  have  beheld  the  republic  leaning  back  more 
to  his  view.  Hoar  rises  to  an  eloquence  equal  to 
that  of  those  who  championed  America  in  Parliament 
in  the  Revolution.  "I  would  rather,"  he  exclaimed, 
''have  the  gratitude  of  the  poor  people  of  the 
Philippine  Islands  amid  their  sorrow,  and  have  it  true  that 
what  I  may  say  or  do  has  brought  a  ray  of  hope  into  the 
gloomy  covering  in  which  the  oppressed  people  of  Asia 
dwell,  than  to  receive  a  ducal  coronet  from  every  monarch 
in  Europe  or  command  the  applause  of  listening  senates 
or  read  my  history  in  a  nation's  eyes." 

With  all  this  opposition  Senator  Hoar  fronted  his  party 
just  previous  to  the  4th  of  March  election  of  1901 !  He 
also  sharply  differed  from  Senator  Lodge,  his  Massachu- 
setts coUeague,  as  well  as  with  President  McKinley,  who 
had  changed  opinion,  he  believed,  under  popular  pressure. 
Yet  when  election  came  he  was  elected  by  the  Legislature 
without  opposition,  with  all  the  Republican  and  with  many 
of  the  Democratic  votes!  This  vindicated  his  conviction 
that  "the  great  secret  of  all  statesmanship"  is  "that  he 
that  withstands  the  people  on  fit  occasions  is  commonly  the 
man  who  trusts  them  most  and  always  in  the  end  the  man 
they  trust  most!" 


268  MASTERMINDS 

"I  have  throTighout  my  whole  political  life,"  he  later 
stated,  "acted  upon  my  own  judgment.  I  have  done  what 
I  thought  for  the  public  interest  without  much  troubling 
myself.  It  has  required  no  courage  for  any  representative 
of  Massachusetts  to  do  what  he  thought  was  right.  She  is 
apt  to  select,  to  speak  for  her,  certainly  those  whom  she 
sends  to  the  United  States  Senate,  in  which  choice  the 
whole  Commonwealtli  has  a  part — men  who  are,  in  gen- 
eral, of  the  same  way  of  thinking  and  governed  by  the 
same  principles  as  are  the  majority  of  her  people.  When 
she  has  chasen  them,  she  expects  them  to  act  according 
to  their  best  judgment.  She  likes  independence  better  than 
obsequiousness.  The  one  thing  the  people  of  Massachusetts 
will  not  forgive  in  a  public  servant  is  that  he  should  act 
against  his  own  honest  judgment  to  please  them.  So  I 
claim  no  credit  that  I  have  always  voted  and  spoken  as  I 
thought,  always  without  stopping  to  consider  whether  pub- 
lic opinion  would  support  me.  I  have  never  in  my  life 
cast  a  vote  or  done  an  act  in  legislation  that  I  did  not  at 
that  time  believe  to  be  right  and  that  I  am  not  now  willing 
to  avow  and  to  defend  and  debate  with  any  champion  of 
sufficient  importance  who  desires  to  attack  it  at  any  time 
and  in  my  presence.  I  have  throughout  my  whole  political 
life  acted  upon  my  own  judgment.  I  have  done  what  I 
thought  for  the  public  interest,  without  much  troubling 
myself  about  public  opinion.  I  account  it  my  great  good 
fortune  that  although  I  have  never  flinched  from  uttering 
whatever  I  thought  and  acting  according  to  my  own  con- 
viction of  public  duty,  as  I  am  approaching  fourscore 
years  I  have,  almost  without  an  exception,  the  good-will 
of  my  countrymen.  In  nearly  every  one  of  which,  I  am 
sorry  to  say,  are  the  numerous  instances  where  I  have  been 
compelled  to  act  upon  my  judgment  against  that  of  my 


GEORGE    F  RISE  IE    HOAR  260 

own  countrymen,  the  people  have  always  come  around  to 
my  way  of  thinking,  and  in  all  of  them,  I  believe,  I  have 
had  on  my  side  the  opinion  of  the  great  men  of  the  genera- 
tions of  the  past." 

In  choosing  the  national  President  in  the  four  great 
national  Republican  conventions — 1876,  1880,  1884, 
1888 — Senator  Hoar  moved  as  a  power  behind  the  throne 
of  the  King  of  America, — Public  Opinion. 

He  favored  Hayes  in  1876  and  the  exit  of  Grant.  In 
1880  at  the  landslide  for  Garfield  after  his  nomination, 
Senator  Hoar  was  presiding  officer  of  the  Convention  and 
came  over  to  its  opinion. 

''Next  to  the  assassination  of  Lincoln,  Garfield's  death," 
he  asserted,  "was  the  greatest  national  misfortune  caused 
to  this  country  by  the  loss  of  a  single  life." 

In  1884,  active  for  Sherman,  he  lived  to  see  later  the 
defeat  of  the  nominee,  Blaine. 

In  1888  Benjamin  Harrison  was  nominated.  Hoar 
favored  Allison.  An  international  bi-metallist,  he  boldly 
stated  his  agreement  with  Alexander  Hamilton,  and  in 
Europe  sought  the  agreement  with.  European  nations,  es- 
pecially England  and  France,  to  an  international  bi-metal- 
lic  system.  He  opposed  Mr.  Bryan's  free  coinage  of 
silver  by  one  nation  alone  as  repudiation.  He  also 
opposed  Mr.  Bryan  on  the  Philippine  Treaty,  believing 
that  had  the  great  Commoner  not  favored  it,  it  would  not 
have  been  enacted.^ 

By  Senator  Hoar's  statesmanship  came  "the  Presidential 
Succession,"    the    constitutional    change    that    makes    the 


iln  1908  Mr.  Bryan  stated  privately  in  the  presence  of  the  author 
that  the  urging  of  that  treaty  he  regarded  as  the  greatest  act  of 
statesmanship  in  his  life. 


270  MASTERMINDS 

Presidential  office  succeed  in  case  of  the  Chief  Executive's 
death  or  removal,  to  the  Vice-president  and  the  Cabinet 
membere,  beginning:  with  the  Secretary  of  State. 

From  the  Free-soil  movement  to  the  Colonial  question, 
not  as  a  politician  trimming  his  sails  to  the  populace,  but 
as  a  statesman  acting  up  to  his  independent  judgment, 
Senator  Hoar,  in  a  way  unsurpassed  by  any  other  modem 
statesman,  came  not  to  others'  views,  but  to  his  own; 
not  to  majorities,  but  to  himself;  not  to  the  dictation  of 
others'  minds,  whether  of  Presidents  or  Senates  or  the 
crowds  at  the  hustings,  but  he  came  under  God  to  the 
dictation  of  his  own  mind. 

AS  A  RIPENED  SOUL 

But  in  the  third  place  he  came  to  himself  also  as  a 
ripened  soul.  He  mellowed  toward  opponents,  and  more 
and  more  saw  the  good  on  the  other  side  as  well  as  the 
evil  on  his  own.  Preeminently  was  this  true  of  the 
Southern  Democrats. 

"They  are  a  noble  race,"  he  insisted.  "We  may  well 
pattern  from  them  on  some  of  the  great  virtues  which 
make  up  their  strength  as  they  make  the  glory  of  the 
free  states.  Their  love  of  home,  their  chivalrous  respect 
for  woman,  their  courage,  their  delicate  sense  of  humor, 
their  constancy,  which  can  abide  by  an  opinion  or  a  pur- 
pose or  an  interest  of  their  states,  through  adversity  and 
through  prosperity,  through  the  years  and  through  the 
generations,  are  things  by  which  the  people  of  the  North 
may  take  a  lesson.  And  there  is  another  thing — covet- 
ousness,  corruption,  the  low  temptation  of  money,  have 
not  yet  found  any  place  in  our  Southern  politics. 

We  cannot  afford  to  live,  and  do  not  wish  to  live  in  a 
state  of  estrangement  from  a  people  who  possess  these 


GEORGE    FRISBIE    HOAR  271 

qualities.  They  are  oiir  kindred,  bone  of  our  bone, 
flesh  of  our  flesh,  blood  of  our  blood,  and  wliatever  may 
be  the  temporary  error  of  any  Southern  states,  I  for 
one,  if  I  have  a  right  to  speak  for  Massachusetts,  say  to 
her:  'Entreat  me  not  to  leave  thee,  nor  to  return  from 
following'  after  thee,  for  where  thou  ^oest  I  will  go,  and 
where  thou  stayest  I  will  stay  also,  and  thy  people  shall 
be  my  people,  and  thy  God,  my  God.'  " 

As  to  caste  and  class  bitterly  arraigned  as  an  aristo- 
crat, he  used  in  reply  his  famous  "fish-ball  letter,"  writ- 
ten to  the  editor  of  the  Pittsburg  Post  in  August,  1890 : — 

Washington,  D.  C,  Au^st  10,  1890. 
To  the  Editor  of  the  Pittsburg  Post. 
My  dear  Man: 

What  can   have  put  such  an  extravagant  yarn   into   the  head 
of  so   amiable   and   good-natured   a   fellow? 

I  never  said  the  thing  you  attribute  to  me  in  any  interview, 
caucus  or  anywhere  else.  I  never  inherited  any  wealth  or  land. 
My  father  was  a  lawyer  in  very  large  practice  for  his  days,  but 
he  was  a  very  generous  and  liberal  man  and  never  put  much 
value  in  money.  My  share  of  his  estate  was  ten  thousand  five 
hundred  dollars.  All  the  revenue-producing  property  I  have  in 
the  world,  or  ever  had,  yields  a  little  less  than  eighteen  hundred 
dollars  a  year;  eight  hundred  dollars  of  that  is  from  a  life 
estate,  and  the  other  thousand  comes  from  a  corporation  which 
has  only  paid  dividends  for  the  last  two  or  three  years,  and 
which,  I  am  afraid,  will  pay  no  dividend  or  much  smaller  ones 
after  two  or  three  years  to  come.  With  that  exception  the 
house  where  I  live,  with  its  contents,  with  about  four  acres  of 
land,  constitutes  my  whole  worldly  possession,  except  one  or  two 
vacant  lots  which  would  not  bring  me  five  thousand  dollars,  all  told. 
I  could  not  sell  them  for  enough  to  pay  my  debts.  I  have  been  in 
my  day  an  extravagant  collector  of  books,  and  have  a  library  which 
you  would  like  to  see,  and  which  I  should  like  to  show  you.  Now 
as  to  office-holding  and  working,  I  think  there  are  few  men  on 
this   continent   who   have   put   so   much   hard   work   into   life   as   I 


272  MASTER     MINDS 

have.  I  went  one  winter  to  the  Massachusetts  House  of  Repre- 
sentatives, when  I  was  twenty-five  years  old,  and  one  winter  to 
the  Massachusetts  Senate,  when  I  was  thirty  years  old.  The  pay 
was  two  dollars  a  day  at  that  time.  I  was  nominated,  much  to 
my  surprise,  and  on  both  occasions  declined  a  renomination.  I 
afterward  twice  refused  a  nomination  for  mayor  of  my  city,  have 
twice  refused  a  seat  on  the  Supreme  Bench  of  Massachusetts,  and 
refused  for  years  to  go  to  Congress  when  the  opportunity  was  in 
my  power.  I  was  at  last  broken  down  with  overwork  and  went 
to  Europe  for  my  health.  During  my  absence  the  arrangements 
were  made  for  my  nomination  to  Congress,  from  which  when  I 
got  home  I  could  not  well  escape.  The  result  is  I  have  been  here 
twenty  years  as  Representative  and  Senator,  the  whole  time 
getting  a  little  poorer  year  by  year.  If  you  think  I  have  not 
made  a  good  one,  you  have  my  full  authority  for  saying  anywhere 
that  I  entirely  agree  with  you.  During  all  this  time  I  have  never 
been  able  to  hire  a  house  in  Washington.  My  wife  and  I  have 
experienced  the  varying  fortunes  of  Washington  boarding-houses, 
sometimes  very  comfortable,  and  a  good  deal  of  the  time  living 
in  a  fashion  to  which  no  laborer  earning  two  dollars  a  day 
would  subject  his  household.  Your  terrapin  is  all  in  my  eye,  very 
little  in  my  mouth.  The  chief  carnal  luxury  of  my  life  is  in 
breakfasting  every  Sunday  morning  with  an  Orthodox  friend,  a 
lady  who  has  a  real  gift  of  making  fish-balls  and  coffee.  .  You 
unfortunate  and  benighted  Pennsylvanians  can  never  know  the 
exquisite  fliavor  of  the  codfish  salted,  made  into  balls  and  eaten 
Sunday  morning  by  a  person  whose  theology  is  Orthodox,  and 
who  believes  in  all  the  five  points  of  Calvinism.  I  myself  am 
but  an  unworthy  heretic,  but  I  am  of  Puritan  stock,  of  the  recent 
generation,  and  there  is  vouchsafed  to  me  also  my  share  of  that 
ecstasy  and  a  dim  glimpse  of  that  beatific  vision.  Be  assured, 
my  benighted  Pennsylvania  friend,  that  in  that  day  when  the  week 
begins,  all  the  terrapin  of  Philadelphia  and  Baltimore  and  all 
the  soft-shelled  crabs  of  the  Atlantic  shore  might  pull  at  my 
trousers-legs  and  thrust  themselves  on  my  notice  in  vain. 

Yours  faithfully, 

George  F.  Hoar. 


GEORGE    FBI  SB  IE    HOAR  273 


A  LOVER  OF  THE  HOME 

"With  the  advancement  of  years  Senator  Hoar  took 
boyish  glee  in  democratic  simplicity  and,  quite  the  oppo- 
site of  affecting'  the  patrician,  threw  off  every  artifice 
of  dignity. 

"I  have  never  got  over  being  a  boy,"  he  exclaimed. 
**It  does  not  seem  likely  I  ever  shall.  I  have  today, 
at  the  age  of  threescore  and  sixteen,  less  sense  of  my 
own  dignity  than  I  had  when  I  walked  for  the  first  time 
into  the  college  chapel  at  Harvard,  clad,  as  the  statute 
required,  in  a  black  or  a  black  mixed  coat,  with  buttons 
of  the  same  color,  and  the  admiring  world,  with  its  eyes 
on  the  venerable  freshman,  seemed  to  me  to  be  saying 
to  itself:  ''Ecce  caudam' — 'Behold  the  tail.'  " 

As  if  championing  oppressed  peoples  was  not  enough, 
in  1897,  as  a  lover  of  the  birds,  he  championed  our 
feathered  race  of  nature's  songsters,  and  in  the  name  of 
the  birds  themselves,  by  a  petition  in  the  form  of  a  pictoric 
pastoral  he  had  offered  in  the  Legislature,  he  carried  an 
enactment  for  their  preservation. 

This  petition,  unsigned  except  by  the  pictures  and 
names  underneath,  of  all  Massachusetts'  birds,  hangs  in 
the  hall  of  his  home. 

In  this  home  as  well  as  in  his  home  town  he  counted  his 
friends  his  choicest  treasures,  and  the  meeting  with  a 
friend  was  to  him  the  bright  spot  of  a  day. 

Opening  out  of  the  hall  is  the  library,  running  the  full 
breadtii  of  the  house,  with  its  windows  commanding  a 
stately,  terraced  acreage  of  oaks  and  maples.  But  within, 
breaks  upon  the  eye  the  real  court  circle  of  the  Senator's 
private  life.  It  looks  down  from  three  sides  of  the  impos- 
ing chamber  from  thousands  of  books  whose  authors,  of  all 
18 


274  MASTER     MINDS 

ages  and  times,  were  the  companions  of  the  statesman's 
mind,  and  their  words  the  stimulus  of  his  soul.  Behind 
the  empty  chair  at  the  desk,  as  though  an  ever  present 
shepherd  and  pastor,  stands  a  massive  bust  of  Edward 
Everett  Hale,  majestically  rugged  and  heroically  moulded. 
In  addition  to  this  splendid  head  of  Hale  are  busts  of 
Eoger  Sherman,  of  Emerson,  and  of  Samuel  Hoar,  Senator 
Hoar's  father.  At  the  other  end  is  a  regal  painting  of 
Webster,  brought  from  the  Capitol. 

Over  the  fireplace  and  on  either  side  are  three  mural 
mottoes,  one  in  Greek,  one  in  Latin,  one  in  English.  The 
English  motto  is  from  George  Herbert,  and  reads: 

"Man  is  no  Star,  But  a  Quick  Ooal  of  Mortal  Fire. 
Who  blows  it  not  nor  doth  control  a  Faint  Desire 
Lets  His  Own  Ashes  Choke  His  Soul. ' ' 

Before  the  Latin  motto  the  Senator  would  heartfully 
turn  to  his  friends,  and  paraphrase  it  thus : 

"Rest  I  at  Home — . 

Why  Seek  I  more; 

Here's  Comfort,  Books  and  Mrs.  Hoar." 

All  this  delicately  betrays  Senator  Hoar's  fidelity  to 
home  and  to  a  helpmeet  the  love-light  of  whose  face  is  so 
expressive  in  the  picture  with  President  Roosevelt,  the  Sen- 
ator and  the  children. 

The  statesman's  love  of  children  is  nowhere  better 
shown  than  where  he  and  his  wife  stand  on  the  portico 
of  the  house,  clasping  hands  with  the  country's  Chief 
Executive,  their  grand-daughters  and  two  little  Syrian 
immigrants  between  them.^     Unjustly   detained   at  immi- 


iThe  rare  photograph  of  the  group  has  been  kindly  lent  by  the 
artist,  Schervee,  of  Worcester. 


GEORGE    FRISBIE    HOAR  275 

fixation  headquarters  and  in  danger  of  deportation,  Senator 
Hoar's  great  heart  responded  to  their  cry,  interfered  in 
their  behalf,  and  through  the  President,  with  whom  he 
stands,  broke  down  the  cruel  bar  that  separated  them 
from  their  new  home. 

On  the  mantel  of  the  fireplace  a  model  of  Lincoln's  hand 
grasps  a  rod,  tj^jifying  that  for  which  he  existed — the 
breaking  of  the  rod  of  the  oppressor. 

On  to  the  left  of  the  library  hangs  on  massive  hinges 
a  carven  black  oak  door  removed  from  the  ancient  house 
of  Charles  Hoare,  Gloucester,  England,  who  lived  there  in 
1580.  Just  by  this,  some  nine  by  three  feet,  is  the  massive 
chest  made  of  timbers  from  the  same  old  English  house. 
It  is  also  of  black  oak,  and  carven  with  the  initials  of  its 
owner,  Richard  Hoare  of  Gloucester. 

Close  by  is  a  heavily  carven  black  oak  table  of  Charles 
the  Second,  dating  to  the  time  of  his  escape  after  the 
siege  of  "Worcester,  England.  At  its  side  is  a  black  oak 
carven  chair  from  a  pew  in  Shakespeare's  church. 
"Shakespeare's  hands  not  infrequently  touched  the  wood 
of  this  piece,"  was  the  Senator's  accustomed  exclamation. 
''What  a  time  the  ghosts  of  the  King  and  the  dramatist 
must  have  haunting  these  relics, ' '  he  more  than  once  laugh- 
ingly remarked. 

Since  the  death  of  the  late  lamented  Rockwood  Hoar, 
a  daughter  having  died  in  earlier  years,  Miss  Mary  Hoar  is 
the  last  of  Senator  Hoar 's  immediate  children  to  survive. 

The  mellowness  of  soul  that  overlooked  class  dis- 
tinctions of  race  or  religion  showed  itself  as  to  his 
attitude  to  the  Irish  Catholic  people.  His  intense  antag- 
onism was  evoked  against  the  A.  P.  A.  movement  against 
the  Catholics,  especially  as  it  had  its  home  in  the  Republi- 
can party.  i 


276  MASTER     MINDS 

"This  nation  is  a  composite.  It  is  made  up  of  many- 
streams,  of  the  twisting  and  winding  of  many  bands. 
The  greatest  hope  and  destiny  of  our  land  is  expressed 
in  the  phrase  of  our  motto,  'E  Pluribus  Unum' — 'one  of 
many, '  one  of  many  states,  one  nation ;  of  many  races, 
one  people;  of  many  creeds,  one  faith;  of  many  bended 
knees,  one  family  of  God." 

Thus  he  sang  the  death-knell  of  the  A.  P.  A.,  believing 
that  it  would  break  up  the  Republican  party  and  en- 
gender a  racial  and  religious  strife. 

"We  are  confronted,"  he  said,  "with  a  public  danger 
which  comes  from  the  attempt  to  rouse  the  old  feelings 
of  the  dark  ages,  and  which  ought  to  have  ended  with 
them,  between  men  who  have  different  forms  of  faith. 
It  is  an  attempt  to  recall  on  one  side  the  cruelties  of  the 
Catholic  church  and  to  frighten  old  women  of  both  sexes ; 
and,  on  the  other  side,  to  bind  the  men  of  the  Catholic  church 
together  for  political  action.  Both  these  attempts  will  fail." 

He  hit  hard  at  its  author  by  saying,  "You  want  to  go 
into  a  cellar  to  declare  your  principles.  You  want  to 
join  an  army  whose  members  are  ashamed  to  confess  they 
belong  to  it.  .  .  You  think  the  way  to  make  good  citizens 
and  good  men  of  them  and  to  attract  them  to  Protestant- 
ism is  to  exclude  them,  their  sons  and  daughters  from  all 
public  employments,  and  to  go  yourself  into  a  dark  cellar 
and  curse  them  through  the  gratings  of  the  windows." 

"I  think  the  time  has  come  to  throw  down  the  walls 
between  Christians  and  not  to  build  new  ones.  I  think 
the  time  has  come  to  inculcate  humane  and  good  will  be- 
tween all  American  citizens,  especially  between  all  citi- 
zens of  the  old  Commonwealth  of  Massachusetts." 

At  another  time,  at  the  death  of  McKinley,  showing  his 
rare   spirit   of  tolerance   towards  both   of  these    classes 


GEORGE    FRI8BIE    HOAR  277 

other  than  his  own  section  and  race  and  religion,  he 
concluded  in  a  burst  of  hope,  nnsnrpassed  in  political  and 
racial  prophecy:  "What  hope  and  confidence  in  the 
future  for  a  people,  when  all  men  and  women  of  all  par- 
ties and  nations,  of  all  faiths  and  creeds,  of  all  classes 
and  conditions  are  ready  to  respond  as  ours  have  re- 
sponded to  this  emotion  of  a  mighty  love.  ■ 

"You  and  I  are  men  of  the  North.  Most  of  us  are 
Protestants  in  religion.  We  are  men  of  native  birth. 
Yet  if  every  Republican  were  today  to  fall  in  his  place 
as  William  McKinley  has  fallen,  I  believe  our  countrymen 
of  the  other  party,  in  spite  of  what  we  deem  their  errors, 
would  take  the  republic  and  bear  on  the  flag  to  liberty 
and  glory.  I  believe  that  if  every  Protestant  were  to 
be  stricken  down  by  a  lightning-stroke,  their  brethren 
of  the  Catholic  faith  would  still  carry  on  the  republic 
in  the  spirit  of  a  true  and  liberal  freedom.  I  believe 
that  if  every  man  of  native  birth  within  our  borders 
were  to  die  this  day,  the  men  of  foreign  birth,  who  have 
come  here  to  seek  homes  and  liberty  under  the  shadow 
of  the  republic,  would  carry  it  on  in  God's  appointed 
way.  I  believe  if  every  man  of  the  North  were  to  die, 
the  new  and  christened  South,  with  the  virtues  it  has 
cherished  from  the  beginning,  of  love  of  home  and  love 
of  State,  and  love  of  freedom,  with  its  courage  and  its 
constancy,  would  take  the  country  and  bear  it  on  to 
the  achievement  of  its  lofty  destiny.  The  anarchist  must 
slay  seventy-five  million  Americans  before  he  can  slay 
the  republic." 

As  to  religion,  "no  five  points,  no  Athanasian  creed, 
no  thirty-nine  articles,"  he  declared,  "separate  the  men 
and  women  of  our  way  of  thinking  from  humanity  or 
from  divinity." 


278  MASTER     MINDS 

He  claimed  he  was  one  of  those  to  whom  '' Judea's  news 
is  still  glad  tidings,"  who  believed  "that  one  day  Jesus 
Christ  came  to  this  earth  leaving  a  divine  message  and 
giving  a  divine  example." 

He  said  he  chose  to  live  and  die  in  the  faith  that  ac- 
tuated one  of  his  own  relatives,  Sherman  Hoar,  who,  from 
the  fever-haunted  hospital  and  the  tropical  swamp,  and  the 
evening  dews  and  damps  of  the  Spanish  War,  when  the 
Lord  said:  "Where  is  the  messenger  that  will  take  his  life 
in  his  hands,  that  I  may  send  him  to  carry  health  to  my 
stricken  soldiers  and  sailors?  Whom  shall  I  send?"  an- 
swered, ' '  Here  am  I ;  send  me ! " 

"The  difference  between  Christian  sects,  like  the  dif- 
ference between  individual  Christians,  is  not  so  much  the 
matter  of  belief  or  disbelief  of  portions  of  the  doctrine 
of  the  Scripture  as  in  the  matter  of  emphasis."''- 

"There  are  two  great  texts  in  the  Scriptures  in  whose 
sublime  phrases  are  contained  the  germs  of  all  religions, 
whether  natural  or  revealed.  They  lay  hold  on  two 
eternities.  One  relates  to  the  Deity  in  His  solitude — 
'Before  Abraham  was,  I  am.'  The  other  is  for  the 
future.  It  sums  up  the  whole  duty  and  the  whole  destiny 
of  man.  'And  now  abideth  Faith,  Hope  and  Charity, 
these  three.'  Hope  is  placed  as  the  central  figure.  With 
Hope,  as  we  have  defined  it — namely,  the  confident  ex- 
pectation of  the  final  triumph  of  righteousness — we  are 
left  but  a  little  lower  than  the  angels;  without  it  we  are 
a  kind  of  vermin." 

"I  believe  the  lesson  which  is  impressed  on  me  daily, 
and  more  deeply  as  I  grow  old,  is  the  lesson — Good  Will 


lAlmost  exactly  the  wise  word  of   President  Taft  in  a  late  pro- 
nouncement on  religion. 


GEORGE    F  RISE  IE    HOAR  279 

and  Good  Hope.  ...  I  believe  that  in  spite  of  so  many 
errors  and  wrongs  and  even  crimes,  my  countrymen  of  all 
climes  desire  what  is  good,  and  not  what  is  evil." 

Sick  unto  death  the  last  few  months  of  the  summer  of 
1904,  to  solace  himself  for  companionship  of  soul  with 
the  lives  of  other  great  men,  Senator  Hoar  read  Morley's 
life  of  Gladstone.  He  also  reflected  in  these  days  on  the 
beautiful  life  of  his  wife,  whose  departure,  he  said,  took 
from  him  tlie  light  and  pleasure  of  living.  The  deep  reli- 
giousness of  his  nature  was  shown  by  the  consolation  he 
took  in  Watts'  hymn,  "Our  God,  our  Help  in  Ages  Past," 
brought  to  him  by  his  old  pastor,  Kev.  Calvin  Stebbins 
of  Framingham,  who  came  at  his  summons.  "I  have  sent 
for  you,  and  I  want  you  should  read  to  me  Watts'  para- 
phrase of  the  XCth  Psalm,"  said  the  Senator,  "and  I  want 
you  should  read  the  whole  of  it;  there  are  nine  verses.  It 
begins  not  '0  God,'  but  'Our  God,  our  Help  in  Ages 
Past'  " 

' '  I  recollect  very  clearly  the  emphasis  he  put  upon  '  Our 
God,  our  Help, '  ' '  recalls  Mr.  Stebbins.  * '  His  voice,  which 
up  to  that  time  had  been  weak  and  husky,  was  as  clear 
as  ever. ' '  This  was  the  mood  in  which  the  dying  statesman 
followed,  stanza  after  stanza,  till  the  lines:  "Our  shelter 
from  the  stormy  blast,  and  our  eternal  home." 

In  this  faith  Senator  Hoar  died  at  his  home  in  Wor- 
cester, Sept.  30th,  1904,  and  was  buried  in  Concord,  the 
home  of  his  Puritan  ancestors.  And  fitly  was  he  buried 
here.  For  Senator  Hoar  clung  more  deeply  than  any 
statesman  to-day  to  the  positive  essentials  of  the  Pilgrim. 
He  it  was  who  devoted  years  to  bringing  back 
the  Bradford  manuscript — the  diary  of  Bradford,  the 
Governor  of  the  Pilgrim  Colony — which  was  carried  to 
England  in  the  Revolution  from  the  Old  South  Church, 


280  MASTERMINDS 

Boston,  where  the  precious  document  was  stored  from 
early  days.  Senator  Hoar  long  sought  it  in  its  resting- 
place  at  Fulham,  England.  For  he  declared  that  it 
seemed  to  him  the  most  precious  manuscript  on  earth,  unless 
we  could  recover  one  of  the  four  gospels  as  it  came  in  the 
beginning  from  the  pen  of  the  Evangelist. 

"My  lord,"  he  said  to  Bishop  Temple,  "I  think  this 
book  ought  to  go  back  to  Massachusetts." 

"I  did  not  know  that  you  cared  anything  about  it," 
answered  the  Bishop,  surprised. 

"Why,  if  there  were  in  existence  in  England  a  history 
of  King  Alfred's  reign  for  thirty  years,  written  by  his 
own  hand,  it  would  not  be  more  precious  in  the  eyes  of 
Englishmen  than  this  manuscript  is  to  us,"  he  answered. 

The  question,  taken  to  the  Archbishop  and  Queen  Vic- 
toria, was  graciously  settled,  and  the  precious  manuscript 
delivered  to  our  country,  where  it  reposes  in  the  State  Li- 
brary at  the  State  House  at  Boston,  open  to  all  at  the 
page  where  is  written  the  compact  in  the  Mayflower — 
the  first  written  constitution  of  freemen.  It  is  seen 
through  the  glass  above,  spotted  as  it  is  with  the  tears  of 
children  and  strong  men. 

Fittingly,  we  say,  by  the  home  of  his  ancestors  of 
Puritan  stock  lie  George  Frisbie  Hoar's  mortal  remains 
in  Sleepy  Hollow  Cemetery,  Concord.  Besides  America's 
first  men  and  women  of  letters  there  are  buried  at  Concord 
Revolutionary  soldiers,  among  them  his  father's  great  Mn, 
who  on  both  sides  of  the  Hoar  family  sprang  to  their 
country 's  birthrights  in  the  first  strife  at  the  Bridge.  One 
of  these,  without  a  gun,  rushed  in  with  a  cane  till  he 
seized  the  musket  of  one  of  the  two  fallen  Englishmen. 
Many  of  them  George  Frisbie  Hoar  knew  and  saw  and 
heard  as  a  boy. 


GEORGE    F  RISE  IE    HOAR  281 

He  once  described  them  as  he  sawthem  alive : — *  *  Scattered 
about  the  church  were  the  good  grey  heads  of  many 
survivors  of  the  Revolution,  the  men  who  had  been  at 
the  Bridge  on  the  19th  of  April,  and  who  made  the  first 
armed  resistance  to  the  British  power.  They  were 
very  striking  and  venerable  figures  with  their  queues 
and  knee-breeches,  and  shoes  with  shining  buckles. 
They  had  heard  John.  Buttrick's  order  to  fire 
which  marked  the  moment  when  our  country  was  born. 
The  order  was  given  to  the  British  subjects.  It  was 
obeyed  by  American  citizens.  Among  them  was  old 
master  Blood  who  saw  the  balls  strike  the  water  when 
the  British  fired  the  first  volley." 

There  in  Sleepy  Hollow  lies  his  mother,  daughter  of 
Roger  Sherman  of  Connecticut,  signer  of  the  Declaration 
of  Independence  and  of  the  Constitution,  and  approved 
as  one  of  the  three  greatest  minds  among  the  Continental 
fathers. 

The  mother's  best  epitaph  is  in  these  words  of  the 
son,  in  whom  indeed,  when  he  came  to  himself,  as  a 
student  of  truth,  as  a  statesman  and  as  a  ripened  soul,  his 
mother's  character  was  in  more  than  one  way  repro- 
duced: "My  mother  was  the  most  perfect  democrat,  in 
the  best  sense  of  the  word,  that  I  ever  knew.  It  was  a 
democracy  which  was  the  logical  result  of  the  doctrines 
of  the  Old  Testament  and  the  New.  It  recognized  the 
dignity  of  the  individual  soul,  without  regard  to  the  acci- 
dent of  birth  or  wealth  or  color  of  the  skin.  If  she  were  in 
the  company  of  a  queen,  it  would  never  have  occurred  to 
her  that  they  did  not  meet  as  equals,  and  if  the  queen 
were  a  woman  of  sense  and  knew  her,  it  would  never 
occur  to  the  queen.  The  poorest  people  in  the  town,  the 
paupers  in  the  poor-house,  thought  of  her  as  a  personal 


282  MASTERMINDS 

friend  to  whom  they  could  turn  for  sympathy  and 
help." 

As  lasting  as  any  memorial  of  Senator  Hoar  will  be 
Asnebumslvit,  one  of  the  great  green  hills  which  are  Wor- 
cester's peculiar  glory,  and  which  Senator  Hoar  loved 
enough  to  buy  and  leave  to  posterity. 

In  Worcester  a  charming  reminiscence  hangs  about 
the  sloping  heights  of  Asnebumskit,  whose  great 
hill-sides,  which  the  Senator  has  bequeathed  in  trust 
to  his  two  grandchildren,  careen  toward  the  city. 
The  statesman,  whose  independent,  fearless  soul  was  itself 
preeminently  eagle-like  and  Alpine,  by  accident  became 
the  host  of  a  pair  of  bald  eagles  and  an  eaglet,  bidding  the 
people  of  the  countryside  to  let  them  fly  to  and  fro,  free 
from  harm.  His  own  words  in  a  heart-to-heart  talk  to  the 
people  in  the  Worcester  Gazette  thus  verify  the  truth  of  the 
reminiscence  and  catch  George  Frisbie  Hoar's  heart- tones 
as  well  as  the  classic  idealism  of  his  nature: 

"A  Bald  Eagle  at  Asnebumskit?" — "There  were  a  pair 
in  the  hill  last  year  with  an  eaglet  (that  got  out  of  the 
nest  a  little  too  soon)  whom  they  were  feeding  and  guard- 
ing with  that  marvelous  love  for  offspring  which  so  large- 
ly pervades  all  animal  nature  and  is  the  most  complete 
and  tender  manifestation  on  earth  of  God's  love  for  His 
children.  If  there  be  anybody  anywhere  who  cares  for 
me,  I  beg  that  the  eagle  may  be  let  alone.  I  have  been 
at  a  good  deal  of  cost  and  a  good  deal  of  trouble  to  pre- 
serve this  beautiful  and  lovely  spot  and  make  it  accep- 
table to  people  who  cannot  afford  distant  journeys.  You 
can  see  the  blue  summits  of  many  an  eagle's  home  in  the 
far  horizon  when  you  stand  on  Asnebumskit.  I  shall 
deem  myself  well  repaid  if  you  will  not  disturb  our  noble 
guest.     Certainly  no  Worcester  man  or  boy  would  lie  in 


GEORGE    FBI  SB  IE    HOAR  283 

wait  to  do  a  wrong  to  the  American  eagle.  He  came  on 
the  19th  of  April,  our  country's  birthday,  the  guest  of 
Worcester  County.  Leave  him  to  be  the  ornament  and 
glory  of  the  sky. ' ' 

Other  memorials  his  proud  city  of  Worcester  has 
carved  in  marble  and  enduringly  erected  in  bronze  and 
granite.  Notable  among  them  is  his  own  inscription  deeply 
carven  by  the  metropolis  across  the  front  of  the  stately 
Court  House:  ''Obedience  to  Law  is  Liberiy."  The  bronze 
statue  at  the  northwest  corner  of  City  Hall,  on  whose  site 
met  the  first  Free-soil  party,  is  also  equally  impressive, 
especially  when  beheld  with  these  words  on  the  brass 
tablet  below:  "I  believe  in  God,  the  Living  God,  in  the 
American  People,  a  free  and  brave  people,  who  do  not  bow 
the  neck  or  bend  the  knee  to  any  other,  and  who  desire  no 
other  to  bow  the  neck  or  bend  the  knee  to  them.  I  be- 
lieve that  Liberty,  Good  Government,  Free  Institutions, 
cannot  be  given  by  any  one  people  to  any  other,  but  must 
be  wrought  out  for  each  by  itself,  slowly,  painfully,  in  the 
process  of  years  or  centuries,  as  the  oak  adds  ring  to  ring. 
I  believe  that  whatever  clouds  may  darken  the  horizon,  the 
world  is  growing  better,  that  to-day  is  better  than  yester- 
day, and  to-morrow  will  be  better  than  to-day. ' ' 


LlTIlKl:    lUlII'.ANK 

l)isc()Vi_TiT  of  ;i    Xi'w  I'hnil  Wdrld 


LUTHER  BURBANK 

DISCOVERER  OF  A  NEW  PLANT- WORLD 

THE  "forty-niners"  who  went  to  California  in  the 
gold-fever  of  fifty  years  ago  opened  to  the  world 
great  wealth.  But  no  forty-niner,  nor  all  the  forty- 
niners  and  ijold-seekers  together,  will  have  opened  to  the 
world  wealth  equal  to  that  to  be  mined  in  the  veins  of  a 
plant  and  the  capsules  of  a  flower  by  such  discoveries  as 
those  of  a  man  whose  only  claim  to  being  a  "forty-niner" 
is  that  he  crossed  the  golden  gate  of  birth  in  the  Massachu- 
setts town  of  Lancaster  the  7th  of  March,  1849. 

The  name  of  this  discoverer  of  a  new  plant-creation  is, 
as  all  the  world  knows,  Luther  Burbank.  He  is  a  gold- 
hunter  whose  fever  is  to  discover  treasures  hid  not  in 
quartz  or  bullion,  but  in  the  plant-cell  and  the  floral  calyx. 
In  solid  wealth,  the  srnn  total  of  such  riches  as  these  vdll 
in  due  time,  as  the  yeare  go  on,  as  they  multiply,  bury  out 
of  sight  that  of  the  gold-mines  of  America.^ 

"I  know  I  shall  be  regarded  as  a  crazy  man  when  I  tell 
you  that  the  work  being  done  by  this  one  man  will  pro- 
duce more  wealth  than  the  entire  endowment  of  the 
Carnegie  Institution,"  declared  President  Woodward  of  the 
Institution.  "But  I  accept  this  risk  and  make  the  state- 
ment. ' ' 


iThat  this  is  not  a  chimera  is  seen  by  the  fact  that  the  total  value 
of  our  farm  products  in  1908  was  four  times  the  value  of  all  the 
mines. 


286  MASTERMINDS 

The  inestimable  value  that  will  in  due  time  accrue  to 
humanity,  wherever  Burbank's  divining-rod  is  to  touch, 
is  beyond  computation.  To  make  this  prediction  assume 
the  bounds  of  reason,  we  need  only  consider  the  one 
billion  seven  million  acres  of  desert-land  lying  waste  on 
the  globe,  and  over  against  this  the  new  cactus  he  has 
created  to  vegetate  these  wastes,  capable  of  bearing  six 
hundred  to  one  thousand  pounds  to  a  plant,  its  pulpy 
leaves  edible  for  cattle  and  its  three  and  a  half-inch  crim- 
son fruit  palatable  for  man.  Were  the  population  of  the 
world  one-third  greater,  it  is  his  familiar  prophecy  that 
because  of  this  improved  plant  alone,  food  would  exist 
for  all,  both  man  and  beast. 

Furthermore,  we  recall  that,  even  by  causing  one  more 

grain  in  each  ear,  the  annual  product  in  the  United  States 

alone  would  be,  of  com  5,200,000  bushels  more, 

of  wheat        15,000,000  bushels  more, 

of  oats  20,000,000  bushels  more, 

of  barley  1,000,000  bushels  more. 

By  the  addition  of  one  tuber  to  a  potato- vine,  the  potato- 
crop  "Vidll  be  increased  twenty-one  million  bushels  a  year. 
Since  his  discovery  of  it  years  ago,  the  first  product  of  his 
creation,  the  Burbank  potato,  has,  on  such  eminent  author- 
ity as  Hugo  De  Vries  and  members  of  the  United  States 
Department  of  Agriculture,  added  to  the  nation  wealth 
equal  to  about  twenty  million  dollars.  If  stretched  in  a 
line  touching  each  other,  the  potatoes  would  measure  the 
distance  of  four  and  one-half  times  to  the  moon  and  back. 

burbank's  great  purpose 

Could  Burbank  live  on,  and  by  some  patent-right  possess 
these  added  values,  he  would  be,  indeed,  a  plutocrat.  But 
such  is  not  his  passion — a  passion  altogether  too  vast  to  be 


LUTHER    BUR  BANK  287 

bounded  by  jyold  and  silver — a  passion  which  refuses  to 
grain  the  whole  world  and  lose  his  own  soul. 

"The  plant-breeder  will  have  no  time,"  he  has  declared, 
"to  make  money."  "No  man  ever  did  a  great  work  for 
hire!" 

His  is  an  ideal  identical  with  that  of  the  elder  Agas- 
siz,  who  declared,  when  pressed  to  turn  his  researches  into 
wealth,  "I  have  no  time  to  make  money." 

Herein  lies  the  distinctive  o:enius,  the  God-jsriven  original- 
ity, the  prophetic  greatness  of  the  man.  Herein  lies  his 
master  mind.  Herein,  greater  than  in  all  his  marvelous 
creations,  is  a  personality  that,  distinct  from  that  of  a 
sldlled  market-gardener  or  a  gold-gilded  money-seeker,  is  in 
America  just  at  this  time  unique  and  rare. 

As  soon  as  any  such  genius  is  filled  with  the  holy  spirit 
of  a  great  ambition  and  comes  to  the  consciousness  of  a 
God-smitten  purpose,  he  is  always  at  once  driven  into  the 
wilderness  to  be  tempted.  The  experience  of  the  great 
Exemplar  and  Archetype  is  universally  true.  The  world, 
the  flesh  or  the  devil  always  conspires  to  buy  off  and 
wrench  such  a  genius  from  his  task  to  better  the  world. 

Luther  Burbank  was  no  stranger  to  this  experience.  It 
confronted  him  between  school-terms  at  the  age  of  sixteen. 
This  test  first  faced  him  when  he  was  sent  for  summer  work 
to  the  noise  and  dirt  of  a  machine-shop  in  Worcester,  in  the 
Ames  Plow  Company,  of  which  Luther  Koss,  his  uncle,  was 
superintendent. 

Though  not  at  home  in  the  maddening  crowd  and  the 
mechanical  world,  his  constructive  genius  was  not  yet  so 
caged,  "cribbed,  cabined  and  confined"  that  even  here  it 
could  be  prevented  from  breaking  out  into  creative  power. 
Such  creative  power  as  a  fact  had  been  existent  and  notice- 
able long  years  before,  as,  for  instance,  when,  an  old  dis- 


288  MASTERMINDS 

jointed  mower  having  to  be  put  together,  before  the  puzzled 
mechanics  on  his  father's  farm,  mere  boy  that  he  was,  he 
picked  the  right  piece  that  was  missing  and  adjusted  it 
at  once. 

"How'd  you  know?"  he  was  asked.  ''Because  you 
couldn't  put  it  anywhere  else,"  he  answered. 

This  innate  inventive  power  to  construct  and  discover, 
even  in  things  mechanical,  led  him  now  in  the  plow- 
factory  to  hit  upon  a  labor-saving  machine  that  would  save 
the  work  of  a  half  dozen  men. 

To  keep  such  a  brain  in  the  factory's  service  the  Bur- 
bank  boy's  pay  was  multiplied  by  twenty-five.  The  ad- 
vance in  pay  was  due,  he  tells  us  to-day,  primarily  to  this 
labor-saving  process  of  his  own  invention,  which,  from  the 
fact  that  he  was  allowed  to  work  by  the  piece,  earned  for 
him  by  its  rapid  turning  out  of  pieces  from  $10  to  $16  a 
day.  But  in  the  face  of  this  increase,  which  was  enough  to 
carry  any  boy  off  his  feet,  he  refused  to  remain,  and  clung 
to  his  one  ruling  passion  to  be  true  to  the  plant- world 's 
call. 

The  switch  of  every  metallic  side-track  which  contin- 
ually the  world  kept  swinging  open,  he  was  repeatedly 
to  close.  He  closed  the  switch  not  because  for  many 
another  it  might  not  be  just  the  place  for  their  genius,  but 
because  it  would  deflect  him  from  the  main  line  of  his  mas- 
ter motive.  To  this  he  became  wedded,  as  he  has  since 
remained,  and  \^all  remain,  "for  better,  for  worse;  for 
richer,  for  poorer;  in  sickness  and  in  health,  till  death 
'  them '  do  part. ' ' 

A  great  voice  has  said  that  boldness  has  genius,  and 
genius  boldness,  and  that — 

"Indecision  brings  its  own  delays; 
The  days  are  lost  lamenting  over  days. 


LUTHER    BUR  BANK  289 

Aro  you  in   earnest?     Seize  the  very  minute; 
Wliat  you  can  do,  or  dream  you  can,  begin  it. 
Boldness   has  genius,  power  and  magic  in  it. 
Truly  engage,  and  then  the  mind  grows  heated ; 
Bcgiu  it,  and  the  work  will   be  completed." 

Burbank  had  the  boldness  of  genius  to  begin,  and  we 
turn  aside  to  note  his  beginning. 

As  we  watch  this  first  step  that  linked  Burbank  to  his 
destiny,  chained  him  to  his  career  and  commissioned  him  to 
his  prophetic  call  to  the  plant-world,  we  stop  to  recall  that 
on  the  human  side,  in  this  boy,  the  thirteenth  child  of  his 
father,  flowed  the  Scotch  blood  of  his  mother  and  the 
English  blood  of  his  father,  and  that  the  scene  of  his  first 
great  success  along  this  line  of  his  one  and  mighty  purpose 
to  be  a  plant-creator,  opens  upon  a  spot  in  his  family's 
market-garden  in  Lunenburg,  out  in  the  farm-lands  some 
miles  from  his  birthplace.  His  mother's  father,  before  the 
eyes  of  the  staring  lad,  had  in  such  a  place  raised  from 
seed,  grapes  and  rhubarbs,  producing  new  and  improved 
varieties.  To  Luther  it  was  a  spot  to  be  approached,  not 
with  scorn,  as  a  place  to  pull  weeds,  but  as  a  shrine  in 
which  to  discern  mysteries.  It  is  recorded  that  once  the 
first  great  Luther  fell  down  upon  his  knees  in  a  field  of 
growing  wheat  and  thanked  God  for  the  miracle.  To  this 
Luther,  vegetation  and  growth  meant  equally  a  miracle. 

There  happened  to  be  in  that  garden  on  a  single  Early 
Eose  potato-plant — an  unheard-of  thing  for  that  variety — 
a  seed-ball.  Luther  Burbank  detected  it,  and  detected,  too, 
that  it  was  an  unusual  growth.  Would  not  the  seedling 
plants  grown  from  it  show  still  further  differences?  The 
New  England  potatoes  then  were  poor.  Could  not  this 
offer  a  departure  whence  to  change  their  degeneracy  ?    And 

19 


290  MASTER     MINDS 

by  planting-  this  seed,  could  lie  not  improve  the  stock  ?  It 
took  no  time  to  leap  to  this  conclusion.  Young  Burbank 
seized  upon  it  without  delay.  It  proved  to  be  the  psycho- 
logical moment  of  his  life. 

On  that  day  he  touched  the  secret  nature  held  out  to 
him  to  grasp — the  secret  of  a  new  plant-world.  But  soon 
after  this  something,  perhaps  a  stray  dog,  knocked  off  the 
seed-ball.  He  at  once  noticed  the  mishap  and  searched  dil- 
igently till  with  its  twenty-three  tiny  seeds,  he  found  the 
ball.  Carefully  treasuring  it,  he  waited,  and  the  next 
season  planted  the  seeds.  The  result  was  the  new  and 
splendid  product,  the  Burbank  potato. 

This  potato,  which  was  to  bring  in  value  twenty-one  mil- 
lion dollars  to  the  United  States  alone,  he  sold  for  but  one 
hundred  and  fifty  dollars.^  It  was  with  this  money  and 
ten  of  the  new  potatoes  that  he  resolved  to  set  out  for  Cali- 
fornia, to  conquer  the  kingdom  of  plants. 

Refusing  for  the  rest  of  his  life  to  make  money  of  his 
venture,  be  the  richest  man  in  Lunenburg,  and  as  a  horti- 
jDulturist  batten  on  the  income  of  a  recreated  tuber,  was 
counter  to  the  advice  of  the  crowd.  But  their  purpose 
extended  no  further  than  the  periphery  of  a  silver  dollar. 
His  was  girdled  only  by  the  boundless  reach  of  the  plant- 
zone. 

Even  much  earlier  than  this  came  an  indication  of  his 
life-plan.  His  older  sister  tenderly  recalls  to  us  his  infant 
passion  for  wild  plants   and   flowers.     She  portrayed  the 


iMany  stories  surround  this  as  other  major  and  minor  events  of 
Burbank 's  life.  Even  at  his  native  place  I  have  been  assured  it  was 
five  hundred  dollars  the  potatoes  sold  for.  But  this,  as  many  other 
overdrawn  little  statements,  Mr.  Burbank  and  his  sister  have  taken 
the  pains  to  correct  within  this  article. 


LUTHER    BURBA  NE  291 

effect  they  had  upon  his  baby  mind.  They  were  his  pets, 
and  small  the  tree  or  lichen  or  weed  that  escaped  him. 
Instead  of  dolls,  he  loved  the  wilding?  and  the  daisy.  Where 
one  child  would  weep  at  the  disfij]rurement  of  a  wax  doll, 
he  cried  as  if  his  heart  would  break  at  the  dismemberment 
of  a  flower.  Holding  up  the  prickly  cactus,  which  was  to 
become  his  masterpiece  of  re-creation,  his  sister  distinctly 
recalls  him  toddling  about,  clasping  it  in  his  arms,  not  as  a 
foe,  but  as  a  pet. 

"Mr.  Burbank,  these  are  all  reflexes  from  you.  Do  you 
not  sometimes  feel  as  if  you  were  exerting  a  psychic  force 
upon  these  plants,  that  in  some  way  not  yet  expressible  in 
scientific  terms  they  are  following  the  suggestions  of  your 
imagination?"  To  this  question  put  to  him  later  in  life, 
we  do  not  wonder  that  with  such  inborn  instincts  he  replied, 
"Yes,  why  notr'i 

FROM  MASSACHUSETTS  TO  CALIFORNIA 

In  1875  young  Burbank  fulfilled  his  resolution  to  set  out 
for  California.  We  have  seen  in  Massachusetts  at  how 
great  a  price  he  bought  the  freedom  by  which  his  genius 
might  follow  its  bent.     He  was  on  the  Pacific  coast  to  pay  a 


iThe  Press  has  recently  reported  that  Francis  Darwin,  son  of  the 
elder  Darwin,  speaking  on  the  "Consciousness  of  Plants" 
before  the  British  Association  at  Dublin,  declared  in  his  address 
as  its  President  that  plants  must  be  classed  as  animals.  He 
declared  that  he  gladly  takes  his  place  before  the  world  as  the 
champion  of  the  doctrine  of  the  inheritance  of  acquired  cluiracters, 
the  lost  cause  with  reference  to  plants  as  well  as  animals.  Darwin 
advanced  proof  to  show  that  plants  have  memory,  can  develop  habits, 
and  will  conduct  themselves  differently  at  times,  according  to  their 
moods.  He  also  claimed  that  there  is  a  system  in  plants  that  corre- 
sponds to  the  nervous  framework  of  animals  and  that  it  acts  in 
similar  way  on  their  constitutions  and  tempers.    From  that  he  argued 


292  MASTER    MINDS 

greater  price.  Hunger,  loneliness,  a  deadly  fever — all 
these  combined  between  him  and  his  purpose.  To  the  core 
of  his  being  they  were  to  assault  his  will-power.  For  when 
he  reached  the  Pacific  slope  he  found  little  work  and  his 
small  savings  from  the  sale  of  his  new  potato  were  about 
gone. 

Unable  to  pay  for  proper  food  and  shelter,  too  proud  to 
let  his  need  be  known,  he  suffered  severe  physical  as  well  as 
mental  hardships,  from  which  his  sensitive,  refined  nature 
recoiled. 

Once  the  chance  to  better  his  condition  he  thought  he  saw 
in  shingling  a  shed;  but  next  day,  when  he  had  spent  all 
his  savings  in  a  hatchet,  it  was,  as  he  confirms  for  us 
to-day,  but  to  find  the  job  taken  by  a  still  lower  bidder. 
He  was  not  wanted ! 

Nearer  to  his  heart  was  a  laborer's  heavy  work  in  a 
greenhouse,  where  it  was  his  fate  to  have  to  sleep  in  a 
damp  room  in  a  loft  over  the  steaming  hothouse.  But 
human  stamina  broke  under  the  strain,  and  Luther  Bur- 
bank  lay  deathly  sick  of  a  dangerous  fever. 

A  woman  offered  him  daily  a  pint  of  milk  from  her  cow. 
He  refused  to  take  it.  He  had  not  a  cent  to  pay  her !  He 
feared,  he  confessed,  he  "might  never  he  able."  Her 
insistence,  however,  forced  the  nourishment  upon  him. 
This  good  woman  saved  Luther  Burbanlv  to  the  world. 


,  that  plants  are  quite  as  capable  of  telegraphing  their  feelings  from 
one  part  of  their  organisms  to  another  as  are  animals,  and  that  they 
are  sensitive  to  impressions  and  show  likes  and  dislikes  readily.  To 
some  persons  they  respond  with  vigorous  growth  and  brilliant  blos- 
soms, and  to  others  they  return  nothing  but  the  most  icommonplace  or 
poor  specimens  of  growth  and  development.  The  younger  Darwin 
remarks,  "We  must  believe  that  in  plants  there  exists  a  faint  copy 
of  what  we  call  consciousness  in  ourselves. ' ' 


LUTHER    BURBANK  293 

All  these  things  were  happening  to  one  who  was  no  slum 
beggar,  but  the  son  of  proud  New  Englanders — rela- 
tives who  had  been  the  companions  of  Agassiz  and  Emer- 
son. For  such  was  the  intellectual  aristocracy  with  whose 
books  he  himself  was  steeped  and  whose  original  inspiration 
he  claims  he  is  now  in  many  ways  outworking  and  express- 
ing. It  is  by  the  force  of  such  clear  thought  and  pure  pur- 
pose that  we  behold  him  pressing  through  the  stubborn 
crust  of  circumstance. 

He  was  to  make  the  countryside  where  he  was,  famous. 
But  the  people  knew  it  not,  and  at  first,  as  is  the  case  with 
every  seer,  the  plant-prophet  was  ''without  honor  in  his 
own  country  and  in  his  own  home. ' ' 

America  needed  and  still  needs  the  personality  of  Bur- 
bank — a  personality  in  which  quality  dominates  quantity, 
in  whom  mind  permeates  materialism,  and  in  whom  is  not 
the  threatened  American  blight  of — 

The   flower   without   the  fragrance, 

The  fruit  without  the  taste, 
The   bigness   without   the  beauty, 

The  wealth  that  spells  but  waste. 

By  1876  the  result  of  his  struggles  in  California  left  him 
enough  to  start  a  small  nursery  at  Santa  Rosa,  and  this 
same  year  he  was  joined  by  his  mother  and  sister  from  New 
England. 

To  an  outward  eye  his  vocation  was  to  be  that  of  a  nur- 
seryman and  collector  of  wild  California  seeds  for  eastern 
and  European  dealers.  In  a  laughing  world,  this  hermit 
figure,  refusing  to  be  carried  away  by  the  coarser  quanti- 
tative genius  of  materialism,  sped  silently  on  his  way, 
searching  through  the  days  for  specimens  of  the  plant  he 
sought,  and  burning  till  late  at  night  the  student's  lamp. 


294  MASTERMINDS 

Far  from  understood,  he  "knew  himself,"  and  "a  purpose 
is  a  good  companion."  He  was  also,  to  put  it  in  his  own 
words,  "in  a  paradise  of  plants;"  in  what  he  called  in  a 
letter  home,  "the  chosen  spot  of  all  the  earth,"  enough  "to 
set  a  botanist  A^-ild!"  "What,  therefore,  did  he  care?  In 
but  a  few  years  he  was  to  change  the  scorner's  and  world- 
ing's  mind,  and  make  scores  of  thousands  from  all  the 
world  pass  by  his  neighbors'  obscure  estates  and  seek  him, 
as  one  of  the  seers  of  his  time  and  day.^ 

Respectability  itself,  which  because  of  its  exclusiveness  is 
too  often  dull,  did  not  understand  him,  and  sometimes 
even  in  highest  places  it  frowned  upon  his  daring 
attempts  to  produce  new  species.  A  callow  clergyman 
denounced  him  in  his  experiments  with  plants  as  trying  to 
change  the  good  laws  of  God.  He  even  invited  Burbank 
to  the  church,  to  hear  unsuspectingly  his  own  denunciation. 

To  be  befriended  was  therefore  the  exception.  It  was  a 
pleasant  surprise  for  him  once  to  hear  a  man  who  was  an 
old  settler  thereabouts  thus  address  him :  ' '  Say,  young  fel- 
ler, I've  been  watching  you  a  long  time.  You're  alius 
attendin '  to  bizness.  But  a  man  that  kin  do  what  you  kin 
ought  to  have  an  easier  time  than  you're  havin'.  Don't 
you  need  a  little  extry  cash  once  in  a  while  1 ' ' 

"A  hundred"  would  stead  him  for  a  good  investment, 
Burbank  presumed. 

The  old  rancher  made  it  "two  hundred!" 

'  *  I  don 't  want  no  note  nor  no  interest  either.  When  you 
get  ready  to  pay  it,  all  right." 

This  old  man  unconsciously  did  himself  honor,  because 
he  recognized  as  a  genius,  not  only  one  to  whom  the  United 


i"Let  a  man  do  a  thing  incomparably  well  and  the  world  will  make 
a  path  to  his  door,  even  though  he  live  in  a  forest." — Emerson. 


LUTHER    BUB  BANK  295 

States,  in  order  to  perpetuate  his  work,  has  been  proud  to 
grant  from  the  Carnefjie  fund  ten  thousand  dollars  a  year 
for  ten  years,  but  one  at  the  mention  of  whose  name 
European  chambers  of  deputies  have  risen  with  uncovered 
heads. 

It  was  not  long  before  an  advertisement  appeared  in  a 
California  paper  to  fill  an  order  for  twenty  thousand 
prune-trees  in  nine  months.  Upon  this  Burbank  at  once 
decided  to  fill  the  order,  and  he  searched  the  countryside 
for  helpers.  With  their  aid  he  planted  all  he  could  obtain 
of  the  seeds  of  the  almond,  the  quickest  growing  tree.  On 
the  sprouts  he  budded  twenty  thousand  prune-buds.  In 
nine  months  these  were  ready,  according  to  stipulation. 

Soon  he  had  so  built  up  his  business  that  it  would  mean 
to  him  an  income  of  ten  thousand  dollars  a  year.  But  to 
be  a  discoverer  of  God's  new  world  of  plants  and  flowers 
he  threw  aside  the  temptation,  amid  the  usual  chorus  of 
mercenary  fault-finders. 

The  place  Burbank  had  chosen  for  the  platform  of  this 
great  undertaking  was  in  the  Santa  Rosa  Valley,  about 
fifty  miles  north  of  San  Francisco.^  It  was  in  1878  that  he 
purchased  the  home-place  in  Santa  Rosa,  the  spot  of  his 
first  experiment  and  testing-garden.  Later  he  added 
eighteen  acres  in  the  Gold  Ridge  section,  near  Sebastopol, 
to  which  he  rides  twice  a  week  to  inspect  and  select  from 
the  hundreds  of  thousands  of  plants  constantly  under  test. 

The  visitor  will  find  just  across  the  street  from  a  new 
home  which  he  has  just  built,  the  original  cottage,  endraped 


iBurbank's  mother  originally  purchased  four  acres,  on  which  Luther 
started  his  first  nursery.  Previous  to  the  coming  of  their  mother  to 
California  came  Burbank 's  other  brothers  and  his  sister,  Emma 
Burbank  Beeson,  a  Massachusetts  school  teacher. 


W 


296  MASTERMINDS 

with  wistaria,  ivy,  bougainvillaea  and  passion-vines.  It  is 
approached  by  hedge-row  walks,  and  is  flanked  by  flower- 
beds and  greenhouses,  while  at  the  gate  it  is  guarded  by 
stately  columns  of  paradox  and  royal  walnut  trees.  Here, 
amid  Shasta  daisies  and  rose-trees  for  thirty  years,  while 
she  has  been  growing  the  roses  in  her  cheeks  and  the  silver 
in  her  hair,  Burbank  has  lived  with  his  New  England 
mother,  who  is  now  past  ninety-six  years  of  age. 

They  tell  me  there  to-day,  as  we  think  of  this  New  Eng- 
land mother,  that  Burbank  had  no  aid  from  her  New  Eng- 
land home  during  the  year  of  sickness  and  privation,  sim- 
ply because  his  relatives  did  not  realize  his  circumstances, 
and  because  he  was  too  proud  to  write  them.  Yet  it  was  by 
only  the  next  fall  that  he  had  so  mastered  circumstances 
that  he  started  a  small  nursery,  carrying  on  horticultural 
experiments  and  collecting  seeds  for  eastern  and  foreign 
seedsmen.  The  business  increased  rapidly,  although  in  1888 
the  nursery  was  sold,  notwithstanding  the  income  now 
amounted,  as  we  have  said,  to  ten  thousand  dollars  a  year. 
By  its  sale  it  was  possible  to  devote  the  whole  time  and 
thought  to  experimental  work. 

THE  PLANT  KING  AT  WORK 

From  this  threshold  and  guard-house  enter  upon  his 
marvelous  kingdom  of  plants,  and  behold  the  gardens  at 
Santa  Rosa.  Here  Burbank  has  had  over  thirty-six  hun- 
dred different  species  under  experiment.  A  brief  look 
around  reveals  many  hundreds  of  species  in  process  of  ex- 
periment. 

But  first  recall  the  secret  of  the  transformation  you  are 
to  behold. 

There  stands  Burbank  himself,  polUnating  a  flower! 


The  BiRTHl'I.ACE  of  LITHEK   BllIBANK,   AND   HiS  CuTTAGE 

AT  Santa  Rosa,  California 


LUTHER    BURBANK  297 

Bees,  insects  and  winds  are  nature 's  methods  of  carrying 
the  pollen  from  one  plant  to  the  other,  and  crossing  the  two 
to  produce  a  third.  Burbauk  is  doing  this  thing  himself, 
and  has  brushed  off  the  pollen  from  the  stamen  of  one  kind 
of  plant's  bloom  to  sprinkle  it  upon  the  stigma  of  another. 

"Practically  all  evolution  and  improvement  are  depend- 
ent upon  crossing,  followed  by  selection." 

This  statement  is  the  principle  upon  which  he  chiefly 
works.  He  thus  secures  in  the  new  product  variation  from 
the  parent  plant — a  break  from  its  usual  course. 

What  by  natural  selection  would  take  nature  one  hun- 
dred years  or  more  to  do,  he  can  do  by  crossing  and  selection 
in  one  or  a  few  years;  for  crossing,  as  it  were,  melts  the 
plant's  fixed  tendencies,  and  puts  it  plastically  into  his 
hands  to  mould  it  which  way  he  will. 

The  early  summer  is  the  busy  season  when  he  makes 
countless  crossings.  In  the  morning  he  watches  the  bees, 
nature 's  pollen  carriers,  as  they  dart  from  bloom  to  bloom. 
When  the  morning  is  young  and  when  the  bees  mark  that 
nature's  clock  is  pointing  to  pollination  time  and  flit  from 
petal  to  petal,  Burbank  at  once  steals  out  and  gets  to  work 
also.  He  dusts  the  pollen  from  the  stamen  of  one  plant 
and  drops  it  upon  the  stigma  of  another.  The  pollen  he 
gathers  and  places  on  a  watch-glass  ready  to  drop  upon  the 
waiting  stigma  of  the  bloom  to  be  fertilized.  That  wind  or 
insect  may  not  refertilize  the  receiving  plant  with  further 
pollen,  he  removes  the  stamen,  cutting  away  petals,  anthers 
and  sepal  cup,  the  pistils  alone  being  left.  To  secure 
crosses  he  thus  treats  his  plants  to  the  number  of  hundreds 
of  thousands  each  season. 

When  the  latent  vital  forces  are  set  free  by  this  act,  he 
plants  the  seed  of  the  pollinated  bloom  and  secures  in  the 
new  creation  a  change,  "w^abble"  or  perturbation  from  the 


298  MASTERMINDS 

parent's  past,  after  which,  amid  the  many  specimens  of  the 
new  kind,  he  selects  the  best  and  rejects  what  he  does  not 
want. 

The  result  of  a  cross  between  different  species  of  plants 
is  called  a  hybrid.  Hybridization  is  breedins:  together 
members  of  different  species  of  plants  to  make  new  species 
and  new  varieties.  It  is  as  a  hybridizer  and  by  an 
astonndinjx  ability  to  select  from  variations  that  Burbank 
stands  without  a  peer  in  the  creation  of  plants  and  flowers. 

After  crossing  comes  selection.  The  instinct  for  selec- 
tion is  also  Burbank 's  by  divine  right  in  the  kingdom  of 
vegetation.  At  times  from  as  many  as  five  hundred  thou- 
sand seedlings  springing  from  seeds  gathered  from  cross- 
bred plants,  he  selects  only  a  single  one  as  fit  to  survive.  At 
other  times  scores  of  thousands  offer  not  one  choice.  The 
judgment  flame  of  mammoth  bonfires  lights  up  his  plant- 
gardens  many  times  a  year.  Here  without  mercy  are  con- 
sumed by  tens  and  hundreds  of  thousands  plants  that  cum- 
ber the  ground  and  are  unfit  to  survive.  But  let  us  begin 
with  the  plants  he  has  redeemed  and  glorified. 

HE    CROWNS    THE    DAISY 

There  are  the  Shasta  daisies — white  stars  centred  with 
sunbursts  of  yellow;  they  once  were  insignificant  field- 
daisies,  the  vagrants  of  his  Worcester  County  hillsides.  To 
get  them  in  New  England,  he  stopped  tlie  cars,  or  waiting 
till  the  next  station,  went  back  to  the  particularly  likely 
specimen  he  had  detected.  Once  there,  he  painstakingly 
selected  the  best  of  the  clump,  and  taking  with  him  across 
the  continent  these  old  home  wild-flowers  of  New  England, 
he  has  raised  them  to  the  throne.  To  its  New  England 
hardiness,  by  crossing  he  brought  the  Japanese  daisy  with 


LUTHER    BUBBANK  299 

its  snowy  whiteness.  Again  by  a  second  cross  he  enlarged 
it  by  combination  with  the  European  daisy;  out  of  this 
interfused  strain,  after  eight  years  he  evolved  the  regal 
bloom  whose  diameter  is  from  five  to  seven  inches  across 
the  face.  To  commemorate  its  new  home,  from  the  white 
snow-capped  peak  of  Mt.  Shasta,  he  calls  it  the  Shasta 
daisy. 

The  Shasta  daisy  will  grow  from  the  Arctic  circle  to  the 
equator  and  will  remain  fresh  from  two  to  three  weeks. 

To  take  a  tramp-flower  like  this  from  the  "byways  and 
hedges,"  compel  it  to  come  into  the  kingdom  and  make 
something  of  it  true  and  beautiful  and  good,  is  with  Bur- 
bank  a  passion  and  an  evangel.  It  repeats  indeed  the 
facts  of  his  own  life  and  of  his  faith  that — 

"In  the  mud  and  scum  of  things, 
Something  always,  always  sings. ' ' 

For  this  song  of  a  lost  plant  prodigal,  he  always  has  his 
ear  to  the  ground. 

** Weeds  are  weeds,"  he  declares,  "because  they  are 
jostled,  crowded,  cropped,  and  trampled  on,  scorched  by 
fierce  heat,  starved,  or  perhaps  suffering  with  cold,  wet 
feet,  tormented  by  insects,  pests,  or  lack  of  nourishing 
foods  and  sunshine.  There  is  not  a  weed  alive  but  what 
will  sooner  or  later  respond  to  good  cultivation  or  persist- 
ent selection.  What  occupation  can  be  more  delightful 
than  adopting  the  most  prominent  individuals  from  among 
a  race  of  vile,  neglected  weeds,  with  settled  hoodlum  ten- 
dencies, down-trodden  and  despised  by  all,  and  gradually 
lifting  it  up  by  breeding  and  education  to  a  higher  sphere, 
to  see  it  gradually  change  its  sprawling  habits,  its  coarse 
ill-smelling  foliage,  its  insignificant  blossoms  of  dull  color, 
to  an  upright  plant  with  handsome,  glossy,  fragrant  leaves, 


300  MASTERMINDS 

flowers  of  every  hue  and  with  a  perfume  as  pure  and  lovely 
as  could  be  desired  ? ' ' 

HE    CREATES   PERFUME,    TASTE    AND    COLOR 

To  such  a  plant-redeemer,  to  perfume  scentless  or 
ill-smelling  plants  is  an  exquisite  and  delicate  service. 

One  evening  at  dusk,  when  the  fragrance  hangs  upon  the 
atmosphere  heavier  than  usual  and  apparently  odorless 
flowers  give  forth  new  hints  of  perfume,  Burbank  detected, 
while  walking  in  the  cool  of  the  day  in  his  garden  of  ver- 
benas, traces  of  a  faint  odor  of  the  mayflower.  But  to  even 
his  trained  instinct  the  array  of  scentless  verbenas  refused 
to  disclose  a  single  one  thus  gifted.  A  year  passed.  But 
the  mayflower  ghost  of  the  fragrant  verbena  haunted  him  a 
twelvemonth.  Again  one  night  the  next  summer  the 
arbutus-like  whiff  of  spicy  fragrance  stole  by  him  as  he 
walked  at  the  same  hour  through  his  banks  of  verbenas. 
He  at  last  found  the  particular  flower  which  alone  gave 
forth  the  scent.  Marking  it  till  seed-time  he  treasured  the 
seeds,  and  as  a  result  of  their  planting  created  a  race  of 
redolent  verbenas,  heavy  with  the  aroma  of  the  one  which 
had  in  some  mysterious  way  stolen  the  deliciously  sweet 
scent  of  the  trailing  arbutus.  This  type  of  verbena  now 
gives  forth  the  breath  of  our  mayflower  with  more  than 
twice  its  intensity. 

Coarse,  rank-smelling  dahlias  Burbank  has  in  like  way 
baptized  with  an  incense  like  that  of  the  southern  magno- 
lia. 

To  the  neutral  ealla  lily  he  has  added  a  distinctive  fra- 
grance. 

Color  he  likewise  changes  by  means  of  selection  and 
crossing,  taking  nature's  pigments  and  using  her  paint- 
brush at  will.     A  blue  poppy  has  thus  been  brought  forth 


LUTHER    BUBBANK  301 

out  of  a  large  quantity  of  seedling  poppies  because  of  a 
faint  suggestion  of  blue  in  a  single  one.  Its  planted  seed 
produced  a  plant  somewhat  bluer.  The  process  continued 
till  now  he  has  one  true  blue  in  hue. 

One  of  the  most  distinctive  of  flowers  whose  color  he  has 
changed  is  the  California  poppy. 

Once,  and  only  once,  he  espied  among  the  native  poppy- 
banks  of  gold  and  orange  just  one  with  the  welt  of  a  crim- 
son artery  streaking  the  gold. 

Its  thread  of  red,  where  nature  had  dropped  a  stitch, 
was  so  faint  that  it  showed  but  on  one  side.  But  by  selec- 
tion through  a  series  of  years  he  has  achieved  out  of  only 
this  one,  to-day's  bloom  of  pure,  solid  crimson.^ 

"We  note  how  he  can  change  and  evolve  color  and 
odor.  But  it  is  so  not  only  with  color  and  odor.  He  can 
do  likewise  with  flavor. 

Once  he  found  a  plum  with  a  faint  taste  of  a  Bartlett 
pear.  By  selection  he  developed  from  it  plums  with  more 
of  the  taste  of  the  Bartlett  pear  than  the  pear  itself.  The 
tastes  of  many  other  fruits  he  has  at  will  changed  or  added. 

VAST   FLORAL   ALTARS  OF   SACRIFICE  AND   CHARITY 

In  uniting  two  plants  to  create  a  third,  the  hybridized 
lily-bed  presents  an  altar  whose  incense  reaches  farthest  of 
all  the  perfumed  flower-banks  at  Santa  Rosa. 

"Consider  the  lilies,  Jww  they  grow!" — five  hundred 
thousand  lilies  at  a  single  test — 07ie  hundred  thousand 
blooming  at  one  time  with  colors  running  into  every  hue, 
and  here  and  there  a  queenly  stalk  over  eight  feet  high, 
clustered  with  fifty  separate  flowers! 


iThe  chemistry  of  color-changes  is  itself  a  study;    acid  soils,   for 
instance,  tending  to  produce  blue  and  alkali  soils  red. 


302  MASTER     MINDS 

If  siicli  a  lily  is  called  an  incensed  altar,  sacrifice  makes 
it  more  so.  The  lily-plants  uprooted  and  burned  in  mam- 
moth pyres  number  hundreds  of  thousands  at  a  time.  Sac- 
rifice, indeed,  is  Burbank's  price  of  progress. 

Should  one  start  a  nature-story  in  plant-life  after  the 
habit  of  our  nature-writers  of  the  animal  creation,  the 
eclipse  of  plants  like  the  mesembryanthemum  would  make 
a  tragic  tale.  To  obtain  this  plant  the  plant  king  took  a 
little  insignificant  flower,  and  by  selection  of  several  years 
of  experiment  developed  a  plant  whose  beds  of  bloom 
banked  their  flowers  in  royal  clusters.  But  in  one  night 
some  secret  enemy  accomplished  their  extermination  and 
the  new  race  of  mesembiyanthemum  vanished. 

It  has  been  said  of  Benjamin  Franklin  that  he  con- 
vinced certain  doubters  of  a  plaster  fertilizer  he  had 
invented  by  sprinkling  it  so  that  w^hen  the  grass  tufts  rose 
richer  than  the  rest,  they  spelled  the  letters:  "THIS 
GKASS  HAS  BEEN  PLASTERED." 

In  a  much  higher  way  Burbank  spells  out  in  flowers  and 
fruit  his  benevolence  and  his  principles.  Originally  the 
amaryllis  was  a  hothouse  plant,  growing  for  the  rich  in  the 
conservatories  of  great  mansions.  Why  should  not  the 
amaryllis,  so  exceptionally  bright  in  its  bank  of  bloom, 
weep  over  the  graves  of  the  poor  and  cheer  the  homes  of 
the  humble?  Its  gorgeous  facets  in  each  colossal  flower 
measure  from  eight  to  ten  inches  across,  but  he  has  made 
it  possible  for  the  poor  to  purchase  them.  Four  or  five 
bulbs  were  at  first  worth  six  dollars  apiece.  He  has  so 
treated  the  tuber  that  now  there  are  from  forty  to  fifty 
bulbs  to  a  plant,  and  has  reduced  the  price  of  a  bulb  to  a 
few  cents,  and  so  placed  the  lustrous  creation  within  the 
reach  of  all. 


LUTHER    BUBBANE  303 

THE   REGAL    WALNUTS 

Not  merely  delicate  flower  tendrils,  but  jxiant  trees  obey 
Burbank's  master  hand,  let  loose  their  vital  fluid  and, 
plastic  to  his  touch,  ^row  as  quickly  as  the  tiniest  flower- 
slip  into  his  re-creations. 

Before  his  house,  we  have  already  recalled,  towers  a  line 
of  imperial  and  monumental  walnuts.  One  kind,  the  Par- 
adox, from  crossing  the  California  black  and  English  wal- 
nut, has  reached  in  only  fourteen  years  a  height  of  sixty 
feet  and  a  diameter  of  two  feet.  It  is  the  fastest  growing 
tree  in  the  temperate  zone.  It  will  grow  practically 
throughout  the  United  States.  For  furniture  and  cabinet- 
work itvS  wood  is  exceedingly  hard,  and  polishable  to  a  bril- 
liant lustre  unsurpassed  in  beauty. 

The  other,  the  Royal  walnut — this  tree's  half-brother — 
is  a  cross  of  the  American  and  California  black  walnut. 
The  phenomenon  of  this  new  creation  lies  in  its  nuts, 
doubled  in  size,  and  bearing  sometimes  a  thousand  pounds 
of  nuts  per  tree.  The  tannin  Mr.  Burbank  has  driven 
from  the  walnut 's  meat,  making  it  a  clear,  yellowish  white. 
Even  the  leaves  of  the  walnut-tree  he  has  metamorphosed 
till  they  shed  the  fragrance  of  different  aromatic  plants. 


THREE  HUNDRED   THOUSAND  VARIETIES  OF   PLUMS 

Among  the  fruit-trees,  the  plumcot  represents  not  only 
a  variant,  but  a  new  species,  which  Mr.  Burbank  declares 
he  has  produced  different  from  any  known  fruit  in  the 
world — different  also  in  color,  taste  and  texture  from  any 
of  its  ancestors.  It  is  a  cross  between  a  Japanese  plum  and 
the  apricot.     This  species  of  tree  never  before  pronged 


304  MASTERMINDS 

its  roots  into  the  earth  till  created  some  six  years  ago.  The 
color  of  its  fruit's  pulpy  flesh  is  white,  crimson  or  yellow, 
and  its  delicious  flavors  equally  vary. 

The  stoneless,  though  not  necessarily  seedless,  plum  comes 
from  Mr.  Burbank's  having  read  of  a  partially  pitless  wild 
plum  grown  in  France  two  hundred  years  ago.  Searching 
till  he  found  its  surviving  representative,  he  has  produced 
a  plum,  from  which  by  crossing  the  stone  has  disappeared. 
To  get  a  plum  that  would  grow  in  sandy  wastes,  Mr.  Bur- 
bank  first  selected  as  one  parent  the  wilding  that  sinks  its 
long  roots  into  the  beaches  and  rocky  banks  of  eastern 
states,  going  far  down  for  moisture. 

Plums  present  to  Burbank  an  especially  inviting  field  of 
discovery.  Seedling-plums  he  grafts  to  the  stock  of  mature, 
vigorous  trees,  sometimes  as  many  as  six  hundred  in  a 
single  tree.  Thus,  instead  of  waiting  six  or  eight  years,  in 
one  or  two  years  he  obtains  both  flower  and  fruit.  Graft- 
ing is  the  way  in  which  he  makes  all  fruit  mature  after 
pollination  in  two  or  three  seasons,  in  place  of  waiting  five 
or  six  times  as  long  for  the  individual  itself  to  mature. 

As  each  matured  tree-stock  is  grafted  to  contain  from 
one  to  five  hundred  kinds,  more  than  three  hundred  thou- 
sand varieties  of  plums  are  now,  after  twenty-five  years' 
crossing,  under  experiment  at  once.  Upon  his  experiment- 
grounds,  already  made  famous  for  the  world's  use,  are  the 
America,  Chalco,  Climax,  October  Purple,  Wickson,  Apple, 
Gold,  and  many  others. 

Another  new  species  of  fruit  Burbank  has  produced  by 
crossing  the  western  dewberry  and  the  Siberian  raspberry. 
The  Primus  berry,  he  declares,  results — a  new  and  hither- 
to non-existent  species  of  fruit  unknown  to  the  world 
before.  It  ripens  its  main  crop  before  the  standard  black- 
berries and  raspberries  begin  to  bloom.     This  for  general 


LUTHER    BURBANK  305 

culture  is  not  yet  recommended,  as  further  improvement 
will  be  made. 

Crossing  the  California  dewberry  and  the  California 
raspberry  results  in  another  berry  which  Mr.  Burbank  also 
ranks  as  absolutely  new  to  the  world.  He  calls  it  the 
Phenomenal  berry.  It  is  larjifer  than  the  largest  ever 
known,  and  of  an  exquisite,  sub-acid  flavor. 

He  has  also  just  domesticated  the  blueberry  into  a  new 
species — the  wonderberry. 

Where  success  does  come,  nowhere  does  it  appear  without 
cost.  A  white  blackberry,  the  "iceberg,"  to  be  produced 
required  in  the  evolution  of  the  desired  plant  the  raising 
and  destruction  of  sixty-five  thousand  bushes.  There  have 
been  times  in  these  experiments  indeed  when  nine  hundred 
thousand  berry-bushes  have  been  destroyed  in  a  single 
season. 

THE    DEVELOPMENT    OF    THE    DETHORNBD    PLANT 

Dethoming  plants  of  spicules  and  thorns  has  developed 
from  tiny  triumphs  to  Burbank 's  greatest  work  of  all. 

The  cross  of  the  raspberry  and  the  strawberry  once  pro- 
duced flowers,  but  no  fruit — only  thornless  canes.  Thorn- 
less  roses,  blackberries  and  gooseberries  likewise  have  been 
evolved  by  crossing  and  elimination. 

In  the  raspberry-strawberry,  thomlessness  may  have 
meant  nothing.  In  roses,  raspberries  and  blackberries  it 
may  mean  something  more.  But  there  is  one  creation 
where  it  means  everything.     It  is  the  thornless  cactus. 

Of  all  dethomed  plants  the  thornless  cactus  is  the  real 
gigantic  achievement  known  to  Burbank 's  genius.  As  has 
been  noted,  an  area  of  over  a  thousand  million  acres — larger 
an  area  by  far  than  the  United  States — ^is  rendered  useless 
on  this  globe  through  its  being  arid,  parched  desert,  unpop- 
20 


306  MASTERMINDS 

Tilated  save  by  the  bones  of  men  and  beasts,  by  sand  and 
by  barbed  and  deadly  cactus.  Where  all  else  is  scorched 
to  death,  it  remains  that  the  cactus  succeeds  in 
growing:  and  surviving.  But  it  is  worse  than  useless,  as 
the  hardiest  sheep  that  are  allowed  to  roam  suffer  torture 
and  die  cruel  deaths  from  the  piercing  thorns  and  spicules 
that  the  cactus  lodges  in  their  intestines  and  eyeballs. 

Out  of  nearly  one  thousand  varieties  for  which  Burbank 
searched  over  all  the  Saharas  of  the  globe,  he  has  found 
a  few  specimens  nearly  thornless.  Could  he  breed  into 
them  properties  that  would  create  a  thornless  cactus,  he 
(Could  begin  to  change  this  tremendous  desert  area  into 
rich  and  productive  land,  teeming  with  food  for  man  and 
beast.  It  was  a  mighty  imaginative  sweep  of  vision,  than 
which  Burbank  has  never  had  a  greater.  It  was  a  vision 
almost  akin  to  Isaiah's,  where  we  read  in  the  thirty-fifth 
chapter  of  the  Major  Prophet : 

"The  wilderness  and  the  solitary  place  shall  be  glad  for 
them ;  and  the  desert  shall  rejoice,  and  blossom  as  the  rose. 
It  shall  bloom  abundantly,  and  rejoice  even  with  joy  and 
singing;  the  glory  of  Lebanon  shall  be  given  unto  it,  the 
excellency  of  Carmel  and  Sharon.  For  in  the  wilderness 
shall  waters  break  out  and  streams  in  the  desert.  And  the 
glowing  sand  shall  become  a  pool,  and  the  thirsty  ground 
springs  of  Avater,  in  the  habitations  of  jackals,  where  each 
lay  shall  be  grass  with  reeds  and  rushes." 

The  result  of  the  study  of  nearly  a  thousand  species  and 
varieties  of  cactus  from  all  the  world's  deserts 
resulted,  we  have  already  said,  in  the  discovery  of  several 
partially  thornless  varieties.  Seeds  from  each  were 
planted.  When  flowers  came,  Burbank  made  thousands  of 
crossings  by  pollination.  For  fifteen  years  the  plant- 
prophet   silently  worked,  watched    and   waited.     Tens   of 


The  (Acrrs  — Bf:FOi;K  and  After 

Above  is  the  original  thorny  kind  of  seedling  cacti,  with  but  two  or  three  dethorned. 

Below  are  tliree-year-old  cactus  plants,  free  from  thorns,  with  their  second  crop 

of  fruit,  one-third  fjrown.  but  when  ripe  three  inches  long,  two  inches  in 

diameter,  smooth,  delicious,  and  of  many  colors  and  flavors.    The  giant 

cacti  are  from  eight  to  twenty  fei't  liigh,  and  weigh  nearly  a  ton 


LUTHER    BURBANK  307 

thousands  showed  no  improvement.  They  were  as  thorny 
as  ever.  A  few  less  barbed  with  spicules  and  thorns  he  sep- 
arated. This  process  beinof  followed  out  year  after  year, 
to-day  the  result  is  a  number  of  g^iant  cacti,  many  of  which 
grow  from  eight  to  twenty  feet  high  and  weigh  at  the 
maximum  a  ton  or  more  each,  with  no  thorns,  prickers,  or 
spicules.  Its  pulpy  leaves  are  from  five  to  ten  inches  wide, 
two  feet  long,  and  often  two  inches  in  thickness.  They 
will  furnish  good  fodder  for  cattle  and  sheep,  whose  eye- 
balls and  intestines  will  no  longer  be  pierced  as  they  munch 
the  luscious  nourishment.  These  thomless  cacti  present  in 
their  broad,  smooth,  slab-like  leaves  on  an  average  six  hun- 
dred pounds  to  one  plant,  about  one-half  as  nutritious  as 
ordinary  pasture  grasses.  For  human  consumption  they 
produce  great  quantities  of  yellow,  white  and  orange- 
colored  fruits,  usually  three  and  one-half  inches  in  length 
and  two  inches  in  diameter,  in  shape  like  a  banana  or  a 
cucumber,  its  meat  flavored  like  the  peach,  the  melon,  the 
pineapple  or  the  blackberry.  Of  forage  they  can  produce 
two  hundred  tons  to  an  acre.  In  comparison  with  the 
twenty  tons  produced  by  coarse  vegetables  like  beets,  car- 
rots, turnips  or  cabbage,  they  thus  offer  the  tremendous 
proportionate  increase  of  two  hundred  to  twenty.  Based 
on  fact,  therefore,  is  Burbank's  prophecy  that  were  the 
population  of  the  globe  increased  one-third,  there  could, 
together  with  what  is  already  produced,  be  grown  from 
this  desert  plant  "food  enough  for  all." 

It  is  not  a  mental  mirage  of  the  desert.  The  cactus' 
value  is  already  highly  appreciated  and  its  use  has 
extended  to  every  continent.  Orders  are  constantly  arriv- 
ing from  the  deserts  on  other  sides  of  the  globe.  From  the 
sale  of  the  first  five  leaves  to  an  Australian  firm  was  built 
the  beautiful  new  home  which  Mr.  Burbank  now  occupies. 


308  MASTER     MINDS 

Kingliest  of  all  Burbank  's  colossal  creations  is  this  plant, 
whose  leaves  shall  be  for  the  "healing  of  the  nations." 


BUBBANK   FROM  THE  POINT  OP  VIEW  OF  SCIENCE 

Exaggeration  is  not  needed  in  presenting  the  work  of 
Burbank.  To  the  plant-creator  it  is  intensely  distasteful — 
even  painful.  He  would  have  no  one  think  that  he  is  the 
sole  discoverer  of  his  process.  In  qualifying  some  state- 
ment in  this  sketch,  Burbank 's  sister,  Mrs.  Emma 
Burbank  Beeson,  with  whom  he  overlooked  this  chapter, 
stopped  to  say :  ' '  Truth  is  a  passion  with  my  brother.  He 
desires  nothing  so  much  as  the  truth. ' ' 

From  Pliny's  day,  when  the  Latin  writer  recorded  new 
fruits  produced  by  grafting,  to  men  like  Mr.  Burbank 's 
own  grandfather  before  him,  not  only  have  gardeners 
grafted,  budded  and  evolved  better  plants  and  fruit- 
trees,  but  scientific  gardeners  and  horticulturists  before  and 
since,  down  even  to  the  present  habit  of  hybridizing,  have 
also  crossed  two  plants  to  grow  a  third. 

Mr.  Burbank  has  not  discovered  the  method  of  crossing, 
as  neither  did  he  discover  hybridizing,  which  is  crossing 
two  distinctly  different  species  to  produce  a  new.  He  was 
the  first  to  discern  and  make  use  of  the  fact  that  the  great 
variations  occur  in  the  second  and  third  generations  from 
the  crossing.  A  journalism  prone  to  exaggeration,  and  a 
mercurial  reading  public  jumping  at  conclusion,  in  their 
ignorance  assume  Burbank  as  the  discoverer  of  the  methods 
of  crossing  and  hybridizing.  This  is  a  fiction  which  Mr. 
Burbank  is  the  first  to  disclaim.  But  granting  all  this,  it 
does  not  subtract  from  achievements  which  outstrip  any- 
thing hitherto  known,  and  rank  Burbank  in  the  sense  of 


LUTHER    BURBANK  309 

being  a  "doer  of  the  word,"  the  greatest  scientific 
re-creator  of  plants  and  flowers  tlie  world  has  kno^v^^.^ 

Hugo  De  Vries,  the  world's  greatest  botanist,  by  no 
means  agrees  in  all  points  with  Mr.  Burbank,  but  is  at  odds 
with  him  over  certain  scientific  deductions.  Therefore  he 
is  all  the  better  as  authority.     It  is  he  who  has  declared : 

'  *  Mr.  Burbank  is  doubtless  the  most  skillful  promoter  in 
the  formation  of  new  forms  of  plant-life  by  the  process  of 
crossing  and  selection. "^  He  is  "a  great  and  unique 
genius.  Such  knowledge  of  nature  and  such  ability  to 
handle  plant-life  would  be  possible  only  to  one  possessing 
genius  of  a  high  order.  Burbank  is  the  man  who  creates 
unique  novelties  in  horticulture,  a  work  which  every  man 
cannot  do.  It  requires  a  great  genius.  It  is  rightly  pre- 
sumed that  no  possible  improvements  are  beyond  his  reach.  "^ 


1"  There  are  a  few  men  in  the  United  States  in  whom  there  is  an 
intense  interest  because  of  their  achievements.  The  most  prominent 
of  these  are  Booker  T.  Washington,  Jacob  Kiis,  Benjamin  B.  Lind- 
sey  and  Luther  Burbank,  and  in  some  respects  the  interest  in  Mr. 
Burbank  is  the  keenest.  His  triumphs  are  more  tangible,  because 
they  represent  unquestioned  power,  almost  miraculous  power,  over 
nature.  Mr.  Burbank  has  created  more  important  new  fruits, 
flowers,  berries,  etc.,  than  any  one  else,  and  he  has  done  most  of 
it,  defying  all  hitherto  accepted  theories  of  plant  creation." — Bos- 
ton Journal  of  Education. 

2So  great  is  the  Carnegie  Institute's  regard  that  it  not  only  grants 
him  ten  thousand  dollars  a  year,  but  has  its  representative,  Dr. 
Shull,  constantly  searching  on  Burbank 's  grounds  the  records  of 
transformations,  recording  them  for  science  and  mankind.  The 
time  will  come  when  for  the  sake  of  science  and  humanity  as  a 
result  of  Dr.  Shull's  observing,  the  Carnegie  Institution  will  issue 
his  results  in  many  volumes,  the  preparation  of  which  is  now 
going  on. 

3The  President  of  the  Carnegie  Institute  at  Washington  in  his 
report  of  1906    adds  these  words:    "The  President  desires  to  record 


310  MASTER     MINDS 

Certain  scientific  deductions  Mr.  Burbank  has,  through 
his  matchless  experimentation,  naturally  questioned.  First 
we  may  mention  the  law  of  "mutation."  In  the  verdict  of 
the  world's  premier  botanist,  De  Vries,  mutation  occurs  at 
only  periodic  times  in  a  plant's  history.  Burbank 's  muta- 
tions (or  elemental  changes)  De  Vries  declares  but 
"sports,"  i.  e.,  a  reverberation  to  some  ancestral  trait 
latent  in  the  organism. 

"No,"  answered  Burbank;  "a  thousand  new  variations 
and  mutations  occur  by  cross-breeding." 

Another  difference  is  as  to  what  constitutes  inheritance 
in  plants.  Burbank  claims  acquired  characters  are  inher- 
ited, while  De  Vries  claims  species  take  origin  by  muta- 
tion. Burbank 's  stand  is  that  he  has  disproved  De  Vries' 
theory  that  acquired  characters  are  never  transmitted,  and 
has  proved  that  acquired  characters  are  the  only  ones  that 
are  transmitted.  All  this  is  in  harmony  with  the  Burbank 
main  conclusion  that  "inheritance  is  the  sum  of  all  past 
environment. ' ' 

As  the  difference  between  the  two  men  is  largely  one  of 
definition,  the  lay  reader  as  well  as  the  student  will  rest  his 
verdict  with  the  man  who  has  the  largest  experimental 
observation.  This,  of  course,  is  Burbank,  who  has  had  mil- 
lions of  variant  plants  under  observation,  while  the  other 
has  but  a  few  score. 

In  addition  to  his  incomparably  greater  field  of  observa- 
tion, another  quality  is  universally  granted  Burbank  by 
scientists ,  namely,  his  peerless  eye  for  detecting  variations, 
an  instinctive  gift  no  study  can  create. 


his  warm  esteem  of  the  scientific  spirit  of  co-operation  shown  in 
this  enterprise  by  Mr.  Burbank,  by  the  members  of  the  committee, 
by  Dr.  Shull,  and  by  numerous  colleagues  whose  counsel  has  been 
sought. ' ' 


LUTHER    B  URBANE  311 

He  applies  this  initiative  insight  to  other  scientific  con- 
clusions. For  instance,  the  Mendelian  laws  have  calculated 
that  a  certain  and  fixed  proportion  of  characters  descends  to 
the  evolved  plant  from  each  respective  parent.  He 
declares  these  Mendelian  laws  only  partially  explain  the 
changes  resulting  from  almost  countless  experiments  where 
"for  years,"  as  David  Starr  Jordan  has  lately  declared, 
"Burbank  has  kept  a  hundred  thousand  different  experi- 
ments going,  more  than  all  the  scientific  laborers  in  the 
world. ' ' 

As  the  plant-creator  goes  to  the  woods  without  a  gun,  he 
goes  to  the  flowers  without  a  book.  Naturally  he  breaks 
asunder  the  bonds  of  old  terminologies  and  has  to  create 
new  terms,  even  constantly  having  to  coin  words  for  hith- 
erto unknown  creations  every  week.  For  laws  as  well  as 
terms  he  is  no  more  bound  to  the  book  and  bell  of  a  De 
Vries  than  he  is  to  those  of  a  Linnteus.  No  book  has  ever 
been  written  to  enchart  his  new  discoveries  of  laws ;  and  no 
book  has  anticipated  them. 

Columbus'  discovery  of  the  new  world  no  book  antici- 
pated. So  no  book  anticipates  Burbank's  explorations. 
He  is  discovering  a  new  plant-world  hitherto  uncharted 
and  unformulated. 

His  chief  book  is  nature,  which  he  reads  at  first  hand 
without  a  mediator. 

''You're  wrong,  De  Vries,"  he  once  burst  forth  at  an 
unhappy  moment  when  the  world's  greatest  botanist  once 
questioned  nature.  "You  are  wrong.  Nature  never 
lies!" 

A  PROPHET  OF  THE  PLANT  W'ORLD 

Such  a  man  has  a  prophet's  originality  and  creativeness. 
It  is  first  proof  of  Burbank's  genius  that  he  is  not  a  priest 


312  MASTER     MINDS 

of  nature,  thumbing  over  Latin  classifications.  It  is  first 
proof  of  his  genius  that  he  is  not  a  straight-laced  defender 
of  the  faith,  telling  over  the  worn  beads  of  botanical  rosa- 
ries and  repeating  academic  credos  in  the  foot-trodden 
cathedral  of  dead  botanists.  He  is  the  plant-prophet  of 
God 's  world  to-day. 

' '  The  chief  work  of  botanists  of  yesterday, ' '  he  declared, 
"was  the  study  and  classification  of  dried,  shriveled  plants, 
plant-mummies  whose  souls  had  fled,  rather  than  the  living, 
plastic  forms.  They  thought  their  classified  species  were 
more  fixed  and  unchangeable  than  anything  in  heaven  or 
earth  one  can  imagine.  We  have  learned  that  they  were 
as  plastic  in  our  hands  as  clay  in  the  hands  of  the  potter, 
or  color  on  the  artist's  canvas.  In  pursuing  the  study  of 
any  of  the  universal  and  everlasting  laws  of  nature,  pre- 
conceived notions,  dogmas  and  all  personal  prejudices  must 
be  laid  aside  and,  listening  patiently,  quietly,  reverently 
to  the  lessons,  one  by  one,  which  Mother  Nature  has  to 
teach,  shedding  light  on  that  which  was  before  a  mystery, 
all  who  will  may  see  and  know.  She  conveys  her 
truth  only  to  those  who  are  passive  and  receptive,  accepting 
truths  as  suggested,  wherever  they  may  be  had ;  then  at  last 
man  has  a  solid  foundation  for  science." 


BURBANK  THE  WHOLE-SOULED  MAN 

Such  a  mind,  acquainted  with  but  unfettered  by  books, 
we  may  naturally  expect  to  overleap  the  barriers  of  not 
only  other  fences,  but  the  barriers  of  his  own  field.  We 
may  expect  him  to  look  into  other  fields  of  progress,  to 
which  he  will  apply  universal  laws  that,  though  learned  in 
his  own,  are  equally  true  for  aU. 


LUTHER    BURBANK  313 

So  through  not  only  physical  nature,  but  through  human 
nature,  up  to  nature's  God,  Burbank  goes  till  he  halts  only 
before  the  Universal  and  the  Infinite,  at  what  he  calls  "the 
fringe  of  the  ocean  of  force." 

"My  theories,"  he  concludes,  "of  the  laws  and  princi- 
ples of  plant-creation  in  many  respects  are  opposed  to  the 
theories  of  materialists.  I  am  a  firm  believer  in  a  higher 
power  than  man's.  All  my  investigations  have  led  me 
away  from  the  idea  of  a  dead,  material  universe  tossed 
about  by  variant  forces  to  those  of  a  universe  absolutely 
all  force,  life,  soul,  thought,  or  whatever  name  we  may 
choose  to  call  it." 

"I  believe  emphatically  in  religion.  God  made  religion 
and  man  made  theology,  just  as  God  made  the  country  and 
man  made  the  town.  I  have  the  largest  sympathy  for  reli- 
gion. '  '^ 

To  him  * '  the  social  and  spiritual  import, ' '  his  sister,  Mrs. 
Beeson,  declares  to  us,  "is  far  greater  than  the  practical 
and  economic. "  "A  day  will  come, ' '  he  prophesies,  * ' when 
man  shall  offer  his  brother  man,  not  bullets  nor  bayonets, 
but  richer  grasses,  better  fruits,  fairer  flowers." 

"the  training  of  the  human  plant  " 

"If  such  work  can  be  wrought  with  plants,"  he 
declares,  ' '  what  may  not  be  done  with  man,  the  most  sensi- 
tive of  all  to  his  environment. "2  America's  greatest  ques- 
tion of  immigration  and  child-life  therefore  concerns  him 
primarily.  It  is  his  working  idea,  gained  from  plant  laws, 
that  "on  the  crossing  of  species  wisely  directed  and  accom- 


i"The  Training  of  the  Human  Plant,"  p.  28. 


314  MASTER     MINDS 

panied  by  a  rigid  selection  of  the  best,  and  a  rigid  exclu- 
sion of  the  poorest,  rests  the  hope  of  all  progress. ' ' 

"In  it,"  he  adds,  "we  face  the  opportunity  of  the 
United  States  of  observing  and  aiding,  in  what  is  the 
grandest  opportunity  ever  presented  of  developing  the 
finest  race  the  world  has  ever  known,  out  of  the  vast  min- 
gling of  races  brought  here  by  immigration."  Fifty  dis- 
tinct nationalities  he  traces,  and  in  the  blending  of  these 
he  finds  our  weal  or  woe.  ' '  Just  as  the  plant-breeder  always 
notices  sudden  changes  and  breaks,  as  well  as  many  minor 
modifications,  when  he  joins  two  or  more  plants  of  diverse 
type  from  widely  separate  quarters  of  the  globe,  some- 
times merging  an  absolutely  wild  strain  with  one  that,  long 
over-civilized,  has  largely  lost  virility,  and  just  as  he  finds 
among  the  descendants  a  plant  that  is  likely  to  be  stronger 
and  better  than  either  ancestor,  so  may  we  notice  constant 
changes  and  breaks  and  modifications  going  on  about  us  in 
this  vast  combination  of  races,  and  so  we  may  hope  for  a 
far  stronger  and  better  race,  if  right  principles  are  fol- 
lowed— a  magnificent  race  far  superior  to  any  preceding  it. ' ' 
"The  hardiness  of  the  north"  can  be  blended  with  "the 
rich  emotionalism  of  the  south."  The  staid  and  phleg- 
matic he  points  to  as  combinable  with  the  quick-tempered 
and  hot-blooded,  and  the  mentally  equipped  with  the  bodily 
vigorous.     The  one  needs  the  other. 

As  to  the  place  to  begin,  he  starts,  as  with  a  plant,  with 
the  plastic  embryo  and  with  the  child.  "Nothing  else  is 
doing  so  much  to  break  down  the  nervous  systems  of  Amer- 
icans, not  even  the  rush  of  maturer  years,  as  this  over- 
crowding and  cramming  of  child-life  before  ten.  With  the 
nervoas  system  shattered,  what  is  life  worth?  Suppose 
you  began  the  education,  so  called,  of  your  child  at  three  or 
four.     If  he  be  unusually  bright  in  the  kindergarten,  keep 


LUTHER    BUBBANK  315 

on,  and  push  him  to  the  uttermost.  Outraged  nature  may 
be  left  to  take  care  of  the  rest. ' ' 

The  plastic  child  can  be  changed  not  only  by  proper 
intermarriage,  but  by  environment,  because  even  inheri- 
tance itself  is  the  ' '  sum.  of  all  past  environment. ' ' 

He  indicts  as  the  present  default  of  our  educational  sys- 
tem O'uer-education  of  mind  and  wwcZe r-education  of  body 
and  conscience.  '  *  The  work  of  breaking  down  the  nervous 
system  of  the  children  of  the  United  States  is  now  well 
under  way.  We  stuff  them,  cram  them,  and  overwork 
them  until  their  little  brains  are  crowded  up  to  and  by  the 
danger-line.  Seldom  is  substantial  progi*ess  made  by  one 
whose  individuality  has  been  stifled  in  the  schools. ' ' 

In  place  of  forcing  studies  upon  the  mind  before  it  is 
ripe,  he  first  demands  "a  close  touch  with  nature,  a  bare- 
foot boy,  with  all  that  it  implies,  for  physical  stamina. ' ' 

"Of  all  living  things,"  he  concludes,  "the  child  is  the 
most  sensitive.  A  child  absorbs  environment.  It  is  the 
most  susceptible  thing  in  the  world  to  influence."  "I 
wish  to  lay  special  stress  upon  the  absurdity  of  running 
children  through  the  same  mill  in  a  lot,  with  absolutely  no 
real  reference  to  their  individuality.  No  two  children  are 
alike ;  you  cannot  expect  them  to  develop  alike.  It  is  when 
one  breaks  away  absolutely  from  all  precedent  and  rule, 
and  carves  out  a  new  place  in  the  world,  that  any  substan- 
tial progress  is  ever  made,  and  seldom  is  this  done  by  those 
whose  individuality  has  been  stifled  in  the  schools." 

By  this  he  does  not  mean  to  neglect  the  child,  or  leave  it 
to  itself.  "Bear  in  mind  that  this  child  life,  in  these  first 
ten  years,  is  the  most  sensitive  thing  in  the  world;  never 
lose  sight  of  that.  Children  respond  to  ten  thousand  subtle 
influences  which  would  have  no  more    influence    upon    a 


316  MASTER     MINDS 

plant  than  they  would  upon  the  sphinx.  Vastly  more  sen- 
sitive is  it  than  the  most  sensitive  plant. ' ' 

Here  is  the  time  best  possible,  he  insists,  to  ingrain  hon- 
esty. "The  voice  of  public  dishonesty,  which  seems  to  be 
sweeping  over  this  country,  is  chiefly  due  to  a  lack  of 
proper  training — breeding,  if  you  will,  in  the  formative 
years  of  life." 

Here  also  is  the  time  to  inculcate  purity.  ' '  The  child  is 
the  purest  thing  in  the  world.  It  is  absolute  truth;  that's 
why  we  love  children.  Here  in  the  child,  too,  is  the  place 
to  ingrain  purity  in  the  race.  Its  life  is  stainless,  open  to 
receive  all  infusions,  just  as  is  the  life  in  the  plant,  and  far 
more  pliant  and  responsive  to  influences,  and  to  influences 
to  which  no  plant  is  capable  of  being  responsive.  Upon 
the  child  before  the  age  of  ten,  we  have  an  unparalleled 
opportunity  to  work;  for  nowhere  else  is  there  material  so 
plastic.  The  atmosphere  must  be  pure  around  it.  It  must 
be  free  from  every  kind  of  indelicacy  or  coarseness.  The 
most  dangerous  man  in  the  community  is  the  one  who 
would  pollute  the  stream  of  a  child's  life.  Whoever  was 
responsible  for  saying  that '  boys  will  be  boys, '  and  a  young 
man  'must  sow  his  wild  oats,'  was  perhaps  guilty  of  a 
crime. ' ' 

In  accomplishing  all  this,  the  state  must  take  the  upper 
hand,  Burbank  demands,  and  as  the  result  is  above  all  else 
the  salvation  or  overturning  of  the  state,  the  state  must 
make  the  child  a  matter  of  law. 

"Especially,"  he  continues,  "must  this  be  true  of  the 
children  of  the  poor,  and  these  unfortunate  waifs  and 
foundlings. ' ' 

' '  Cut  loose  from  all  precedent,  and  begin  systematic  State 
and  National  aid ;  not  next  year,  or  a  decade  from  now,  but 
to-day.    Begin  training  these  outcasts,  begin  the  cultiva- 


LUTEEB    BUBBANK  317 

tion  of  them,  if  you  will,  much  as  we  cultivate  the 
plants. ' ' 

"How  m^any  plants  are  there  in  the  world  to-day  that 
were  not  in  a  sense  once  abnormalities?  No,  it  is  the 
influence  of  cultivation,  of  selection,  of  surroundings,  of 
environments,  that  makes  the  change  from  the  abnormal  to 
the  normal.  From  the  children  that  we  are  led  to  call 
abnormal  may  come,  under  wise  cultivation  and  training, 
splendid  normal  natures." 

Vicious  or  defective  tendencies  can  be  outbred  from 
plants,  he  demonstrates,  in  from  six  to  ten  generations,  and 
by  the  repetition  of  treatment,  the  new  habits  ensue.  '  *  So 
can  it  be  with  the  races,  through  the  training  of  a  child. 
Only  it  will  be  immeasurably  easier  to  produce  and  fix  any 
desired  traits  in  the  child  than  in  the  plant."  "For  the 
most  stubborn  living  thing  in  this  world,  the  most  difficult 
to  swerve,  is  a  plant  once  fixed  in  certain  habits,  habits 
which  have  been  growing  stronger  and  stronger  upon  it  by 
repetition  through  thousands  and  thousands  of  years.  The 
human  will  is  a  weak  thing  beside  the  will  of  a  plant.  But 
see  how  this  whole  plant's  life-long  stubbornness  is  broken 
swiftly  by  blending  a  new  life  with  it,  making,  by  crossing, 
a  complete  change  in  its  life." 

With  such  traits  and  purposes  emerges  Burbank,  the 
Man,  having  considered  "the  lily,  how  it  grows,"  only  like 
the  Great  Exemplar,  to  direct  his  vision  to  mankind. 
Horticultural  science,  great  as  it  is,  has  been  to  him  but  a 
ladder  whose  rounds  have  advanced  his  soul  to  an  ascend- 
ancy where  not  vegetation  but  Being  is  supreme. 

"Poet,  whose  words  are  like  the  tight-paoked  seed 

Sealed  in  the  capsule  of  a  silver  flower, 
Still  at  your  art  we  wonder  aa  we  read 

The  art  dynamic  charging  each  word  with  power ! ' ' 


■/5 


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